Valkyria Chronicles: Isara's Survival
by ArtilleryImbecile
Summary: Isara survives, but no one knows that. Working alongside an Imperial OC, they work to survive their predicaments and delve into a secret best left undisturbed... rated M for violence, gore, minor language, epic drama, and possible future adult themes.
1. Chapter 1: Celestyn Faas Jacelern

**Hello, fans of Valkyria Chronicles. Did you facepalm as Imperial soldiers unanimously shot unarmed civilians? Did you wince at the epicly random death of Isara, cutting off a path for a truly interesting character to develop?**

**Look no further. A debuting writer, I've chosen to practice on a previously established world - Valkyria Chronicles - but I'm not so lame as to shoehorn in side stories that leave the canon untouched or simply use main characters as puppets. This is an additional plotline, one that will eventually wrap around to affect the status quo.**

**Due to the nature of my free time, I will post in short blurbs, each one following an important event. This means constant updating - but for those of you who prefer something longwinded, I am sorry. If you want, just try copypasting it all together. I'll mark actual "Chapters" where they come.**

**I am open to all suggestions, comments, and reviews, especially reviews. Posting any sort of feedback keeps me motivated, and lets me keep on writing. Don't cringe at pointing out mistakes - if if've done something as minor as using an apostrophe where I shouldn't have, point it out. Doing so keeps quality high, for all of your enjoyment.**

**Enough with the longwinded introductions. The first 4 blurbs are up, marking the first "Chapter". Enjoy.**

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Unit 29-4 stood collectively sweating under the barn roof, lit only by a single flickering lamp. A single man stood in the center across from his lieutenant, flanked by the spectators, the dozen soldiers the bedraggled remains of the once fifty-strong unit.

He held his chin up proudly, helmet tucked underneath his arm, chest thrown out. Dents and blastmarks pocked his heavy metal armor, but he stood unaided and unwounded. A heavy automatic rifle slung over his full kit, supplies and tools to last him a full week unaided. Silver streaking through his pitchblack military haircut gave him a look of dignity despite his young face, the ever-present band of black gauze around his brow and hidden left eye adding a dashing touch. In contrast to the rest of his squad, who were exhausted, nursing wounds, or worst of all laying cold and broken on the Marberry shores, he was the shining example of the Empire's might.

He sure didn't feel that way.

"Lance Corporal Celestyn Faas Jacelern," said Lieutenant Karst in crisp Imperial, the last of the mostly ceremonial – and unheeded – debriefing coming to a close. The soldier stiffened. "For valor under heavy fire –"

_A sunny afternoon, some dozen years ago, his mother telling of her first husband before the unhappy marriage she was in then. Killed when the hospital was shelled, her grief on the letter. Telling of how she married the brutish shopkeeper who promptly died under mysterious circumstances, leaving them the place –_

"– rescuing two wounded of your fireteam from Gallian attack –"

_Later in life, school, interested in medicine even at a young age. He had a dark blue-black haired Darcsen alley-rat friend, one that everyone else avoided. A school group of belligerents decided to beat him up one day - him using the harshest language he knew, fighting the brutes, taking a stomach punch, giving one to the teeth, things breaking. Going home to his mother beaten and bruised, but victorious, learning just then why he had to keep the gauze over his left eye at all times, the dark blue tones in it betraying his real father's blood, the eloquent rebel who she had seduced in a moment of her unhappiness, the man who was everything and yet could not stay – _

"– you have proved yourself worthy –"

_Second Europan War. Pulled straight out of medical school by the headmaster, being enlisted as a trooper, swearing fealty to the Emperor, from learning to heal, to learning to kill –_

"– of the Iron Cross, 4th Class."

Lance Corporal Celestyn Faas Jacelern stepped forward to let Lieutenant Karst pin the highest honor he could independently bestow onto a cloth patch on his steel-shelled chest, a humble grey thing the size of a penny glinting proudly as it could against the drab and stained armor. It was the Lance Corporal who saluted and received one in turn – but when the Lieutenant proclaimed "at ease", it was Celes the boy of seventeen years, who never wanted to go to war, who sighed and walked to join the rest of the shambling squad to the nearby haystacks. All of them – even the Lieutenant – arranged themselves onto piles, grumbling limp heaps of armor that belied the weakened forms inside.

"Anyone hurting?" asked Celes. Imperial squads didn't have medics – they were supposed to be in contact with a base of operations at all times, complete with a full hospital or at the very least a field surgery. That base was now a smoking ruin, crushed underneath the treads of that damnable Gallian tank, flying a flag raised by those cunning soldiers, better than any Federation troops they had once faced on the southern front. Celes squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the fresh memory –

_His fireteam sitting in the trench, hearing first one beach gun stop, then the other. Slowly releasing that the attack was not going to be like all those told about by the veterans of this post, seeing the blue pillars of flame as the ragnite fuel went up, a thought that the Gallians just might have gotten through –_

Groaning and moaning from those standing, but nothing serious – no reopened stitches, no need for any more Ragnaid. "I'll go see to them, then," he mumbled. He got up quickly, moving in long strides to the opened door. It was cooler outside in the night air – his wet face chilled, and he struggled to keep from dampening it further with hysterical tears –

_Fire from behind, a few scouts and troopers somehow through their lines already. Couldn't move, couldn't look above the trench, face the enemy, raise his weapon, _fight_. Kell and Heinrich screaming their visuals – one at 12, the other at 10; then one neither of them saw at 7 emptying a clip with uncanny accuracy. Rounds cracking the joints of the armor around the chest, falling in a spray of red. He was up then, saw a dashing scout with her hair back in a red scarf charging forward, only then able to spray his rifle's magazine into open air to force her to duck behind a rock – cover that should have been removed, but they weren't supposed to have cut through the beach –_

Celes dropped his helmet loosely onto his head to free his hand, climbing the barn ladder. Right at the stop, he stopped at the hayloft opening, and turned to look at Marberry a mere quarter-day's march away, fires and booming from the Gallian mop-up operations easily making it over as further units pushed past the beaches and swept onto the mainland –

_The remaining members of the forward fireteams forced that scout aside with wild fire, chasing her to a flank while they fell back from the front – even so one falling to an accurate burst from her hip; nothing to be done for him, a shot straight through the visor. Panicked men jumping into the trench, covering fire as he slung his rifle, did his best for his teammates, cracking a Ragnaid capsule, knowing it alone wouldn't be enough, opening the breastplate clasps to reach the chest. Applying bandages that were somehow already in his hand, sealing them with tape except on one corner, to let the lungs reinflate in their cavities if they were collapsing –_

He blinked away the sight, and lifted himself up. It was brighter here, most of the lights from below moved up here to give him, _him_, the best working conditions possible. His personal surgery kit, the only physical reminder of his three years of medical school, was strewn all over crates and barrels as tables that surrounded two wounded men, resting under tarps. Redheaded Kell and short, mustached Barnett were breathing, but unconscious and pale – given the heat and pain they must have been in after he had removed the bullets from the first, the shrapnel from the other.

He considered cracking an additional bit of Ragnaid for them but decided against it – who knew when they would have a resupply with Marberry gone? The trooper sat, and began to pull a string connected to a third suspended tarp, creating an artificial breeze for all their relief, his free hand pulling off his helmet once more, letting it drop heavily onto the straw-strewn boards.

Celes cooled his face with his gauntleted free hand, feeling the sweat evaporate and cool, being reminded of the blood that was on it not so long ago –

_Shouts for a lancer as the two tanks crashed through what had once been a cloud of smoke, the last one in his squad suddenly spurting blood from both ears as a sniper took him. They had all the advantage: position, psychology, momentum, sniper coverage and now heavy weapons – especially heavy weapons, as an azure comet hit the ground in front of the trench, fragging any that were standing into piles of shattered limbs, gore spilling into the trench –_

Sobbing freely now, the forner med student lost control. It had been so bad –

_Lieutenant Karst, the imperturbable, still rock steady somehow even with what must have been the remains of a kidney across his high brow, the front of his once-black dress uniform now matching the crimson inside of his half-cape. He calmly fired his custom sidearm in the tanks' direction, as if it would somehow be effective, giving the order to withdraw, as collected as if he was giving the order off of a scout's report, instead of while facing down a tank so fearsome to have cut through most of the beachhead aided only by a single other vehicle, a light one at that._

_Their officer lifted himself out and ran with them almost towards the force that had made it around, laying down cover fire as best as they could on the move – some of them lost their nerve and made a second group running back to the cliff wall, but that was no exit, given the rapidly approaching armor. Someone had scooped up Kell, and likewise Heinrich, no – Heinrich's man fell to return fire, that red-scarf dervish firing with them, and then they were past them. No one was going back into that hail of fire to get Heinrich. _

_A second shell, lighter, landed nearby – threw Barnett far in front of them, landing in a twisted heap, but bloodless. They snatched him up just as machine guns rippled through them, angry wasps that tore through their armor like a heated razor through tissue. Barnett's man dropped him as he himself was felled along with several others; Celes picked Barnett up in turn, helped by Lieutenant Karst – and they made off past a bend in the trail. The Gallians didn't pursue – but the second group never made it, pinned between armor on one side, their own occupied cover on the other. They bought the time for Celes's group – but that was all they could do, screams as they went down in a last stand, even as the red and black Imperial flag came down over the command post and the blue banner of Gallia was raised, a sign of defeat over a shattered ruin._

He found himself leaning against the wall, tears flowing down his face like waterfalls and gave into shocked unconsciousness.

_War is hell._


	2. Welkin's Anguish

Lieutenant Welkin Gunther of Squad 7 surveyed the carnage of Marberry with a weary gaze. Corpses of Imperial soldiers, twisted heaps of armor and cold meat, littered the inner encampment. A few shell craters from the Edelweiss's gun were ringed with broken limbs and shards of metal that glinted in the morning sun, the only reminders of the men that had once stood there.

It hadn't been a battle after they had penetrated the beach, but a rout. Sergeant Alicia – his second-in-command, elite scout, and much, much more – had done a good job, leading a few handpicked fighters in outflanking the disorganized garrison that had occupied the encampments. Pinning the bulk of the Imperial force down, all she and her forces had had to do was keep them there as Squad 7's armor crushed them in a single move.

Welkin twisted his mouth. Crushing it had been. He knew he couldn't give quarter – his smallish squad of militia couldn't possibly maintain that many prisoners and hope to continue the operation. And yet it was sickening to see trained soldiers reduced to fleeing animals, animals which he was ordered to cut down to the last man. _It's not what nature intended. No other species in the world will systematically eliminate other members of its own race just because another said to._

At least some of them had gotten away. When the routed Imperials had split into two groups, one escaping straight past Alicia's detachment, the other running straight between her and Welkin's positions, he had opted to close the vise so that at least some life could be spared. It would have been so easy to order Alicia to pursue – with their quick speed and training, they could have run every last man into the dust, and the Edelweiss and Shamrock, Squad 7's lighter tank, would have been able to take down a mob of broken Imperial troops without aid. _It's a crime to have to end so much life, even if it is Imperial._ He thought of earlier, when he and Alicia had been separated from the rest of Squad 7.

_They had found an abandoned cabin, through which to spend the night. Suddenly, he started. Footsteps from outside. Minutes later, the two of them were doing the best they could to save a wounded Imperial soldier's life, watching helplessly as he cried out in pain, calling for his mother. Alicia taking on that role, bringing a last moment of peace to him as he died._

Next to him, his adopted sister, Corporal Isara Gunther, tinkered with something underneath the Edelweiss. The advanced tank had been battered in the assault, but not a single direct hit had been scored – between Isara's newly developed smoke rounds to cover their approach and the Edelweiss's own maneuverability and sloped armor, moving past the beach guns had been a cakewalk compared to penetrating on foot.

"Is?"

"Hold on," Isara said, still working. "Let me finish." A scrape, some clicking, and a solid _whack_. Welkin raised an eyebrow, and crouched down, wondering just what she was doing, but by then Isara had wheeled herself out from underneath the experimental, heavily modified tank on a roller. She wiped her sweat-covered brow with a greased glove, smearing on a layer of grime, blue-black like her hair – Darcsen. "What, Welks?"

"Why are we here?"

Isara blinked at the unexpected question, but sat up, resting her back against the massive tread – Welkin stood back up, leaning against the adjacent section. "I'm surprised. You're asking me? You were the one who signed up for the militia in the first place, and, well, I came with the Edelweiss."

"I know what was enlisted for, Is," he growled. She gasped a bit in stress – he never sounded like this very often. "I enlisted to end the war as fast as I could. But this?" Welkin spread his arms, emphasizing the ruins of the battlefield, and sighed. "This is slaughter, and what we've done is protect our industrial facilities… so that we can continue this war anyways. Why haven't we negotiated yet?" He dropped them heavily, bitter – and angry. "Are we going to meet them head-on, as if we dared crush the military might of the Empire?"

"Welks, you know that we don't need to defeat them all, you said it yourself. What did you say?" The mechanic suddenly smiled and clapped her gloved hands, a wrench still clasped in one. "Oh, yes! A wolf confronted will back away, even from a rabbit."

"But when the rabbit charges forward after making its point, the wolf will still kill it anyways." He dropped a fist onto the tread of his fighting vehicle, not hard, but still angrily. "That's what's going to happen, Is, the way our orders read now."f

She tightened her own mouth. "Well then, Welks, that's just what's going to happen. The Empire may be the big bad wolf, but there's an even more insidious snake in Europa right now." She stabbed her wrench at a group of soldiers, beside the wall of a bunker. One was his sergeant Alicia,– the other two were hulking, bearded Largo, his senior lancer leaning against his namesake antitank weapon, and Rose, the red-haired fearless shocktrooper, automatic rifle slung across her back. The Darcsen tank commander, Zaka, was nowhere to be seen, although he was probably inside of his beloved Shamrock, fiddling with the insides. The wrench seemed to be pointing at Rosie in particular.

"People like her are the true reason we have war. They can't release their prejudices against others, and see everyone as human beings, even when it's clear that they're false and damaging," she snapped, though she softened as she continued. "I just hope I change them… I gave Rosie a gift for the Feast of All-Spirits," naming the holiday where gifts were exchanged to those one loved and care for, "but she refused…" she trailed off.

As if that was the end of their discussion, she laid back down, sliding underneath once more. "Now if you'll excuse me, _brother_, I've work to do. The Edelweiss may not be damaged, but the new tread is loose again." Another series of clicks, pings, and a grinding sound floated out; with another sigh, Welkin stood up and let her work unfettered. He needed to discuss the operation's results with Alicia anyhow… and he smiled, nodding to her as he appfroached the sergeant, his own bright expression reflected in her own.


	3. Lieutenant Karst's Plan

Celes woke with a start as the sun hit his face through the open hayloft door. He'd slept all night, and still in his armor, no less. There was a blanket that some squadmate had kindly dropped over him, and he shook it off. Wincing, he realized that he'd sweated something awful over the night; he stunk, and his face and hair felt like they had been painted on. His eyes felt puffy and weak – he wondered how long he'd been in pieces last night.

He rubbed his head, or at least tried to, looking at the metal gauntlet as it came away slathered in his own oils. _Valkyur_, he cursed.

With a few steps away from his seat, he checked Kell and Barnett again. They were fine, as fine as people shot repeatedly or blown twenty feet into the air could be. He smiled; he felt like some sort of nurse. Awkwardly he raised a hand to his head again, before again realizing that he still had his gauntlets on.

Growling, he got himself out of his stinking armor – clasps, latches, and buckles later, it was in a neat if grimy and worn pile on an overturned crate. For neatness, he stacked his helmet and gauntlets on top, then grabbed his dropped pack and leant his rifle against it. He repeated the process for each of his patients, stacking their kit into neat piles. When he was done, it looked almost like base again.

He proceeded to take care of himself. In his worn brown fatigues, he slid down the ladder in seconds, moving towards the well that resided in the yard. The place was obviously owned and maintained by the village occupants, but he hoped that they wouldn't be coming in for work any time soon. It was the day after the Feast, first of all, and besides it was unlikely that this place was used much. The workforce here was most likely made up of factory workers, who would take a bus to centralized areas of industry every day. If they were discovered here, it would be a shock.

One bucket of water later, he still stunk, but at least his face was clean. Images of the Marberry shore were dashed away with a blast of cold fresh water into his eyes, and a third bucket he greedily drank from, finally calming down.

Fingering the wisps of facial hair that refused to grow out into a mature beard, he realized that the unit's chain of command had collapsed. There had been no call to arms, no morning orders, no – well, anything. Momentarily he wondered if there had been a second evening briefing, but he dismissed that; if Lieutenant Karst had orders, he'd have made sure the entirety of the unit was paying attention, and not a single man of them – except maybe the cold, calm, calculated Lieutenant himself – could have done so right after that slaughter.

With a mental shrug to throw off any feelings of misgiving, he called out towards the barn's main doors, which were shut. "Lieutenant?"

An answer came back immediately. "Jacelern. Come inside, I need to speak with you." Celes almost laughed hysterically. The Lieutenant's tone was as if he was ordering breakfast, somehow carrying through the wooden doors anyways as if they simply hadn't existed.

Sighing, he hung up the bucket and crossed the yard again. Carefully opening the door a crack, he slid into the gap and shut it behind him, eyes adjusting to the dim lighting once more.

What he saw almost made him laugh again. The Lieutenant _had_ ordered breakfast. The unit was sitting docilely along the walls or upon containers or haystacks, eating from mess plates. The food was little more than canned rations, but it smelled good – especially after the day's previous combat. Lieutenant Karst was himself seated in a facsimile of a desk, created with three barrels, a board, a ragnite lamp and a milk crate for a chair. A set of plates, one filled with food, documents, and a map were strewn on its surface. He looked absolutely impeccable for a man who had had a subordinate's guts splattered across his face the preceding day. Even his circular glasses were sparkling – Celes could see his one-eyed, tousled reflection in them.

The trooper stepped carefully up to the laughable arrangement and snapped to attention. "Sir!" he said with the most bite he could put into his voice, which was to say not much.

The Lieutenant saluted back smartly and yet casually, and, as Celes relaxed, pushed the filled plate towards him. "Eat, Jacelern, you need your strength. I'll guess by your lack of contrition that Kell and Barnett are doing just fine?"

Celes failed to answer immediately for the oily sausage filling his mouth. Chewing rapidly, he made sure to swallow every bit before replying. "Yes, sir. I expect we'll be able to move them in a few days…" he trailed off. They didn't have a few days here – the Marberry shore was a mere couple of hours march by foot, minutes by tank or truck.

As if reading his mind – a common enough occurrence for the Lieutenant – his commanding officer adjusted his lenses and coughed slightly to take the initiative. "Precisely my point, Jacelern. We don't have that. We're lucky they didn't decide to pursue last night, but they will surely be here looking for remnants today."

He stood up, now addressing the whole remaining unit with the same reaching tone of voice. "Men." That simple statement stopped all mumbled conversation to an immediate halt; he had their undivided attention. "Continue eating, we haven't time for me to do this formally." Even so, they didn't taste the sour fruit or greasy meat as they watched. Not a single set of eyes doubted – they had absolute faith in their Lieutenant.

"We are broken. It doesn't need to be said that all of us saw most of their friends killed yesterday."

Stress crept in. The bloody taste of revenge turned into ash in their mouths as they considered their current state, which was pitiful, at the very least.

"That is why I suggest we temporarily disband."

That was an eye opener.

Their radio tech, Tella with the scruffy blond beard, called out an immediate reply. "But sir, what about our line of communications? We can report the situation, get extraction." He spoke hopefully, eyes shining with the thought of returning to the capital, resting – perhaps meeting his wife again, actually surviving the war.

"That is impossible in our current situation, Tela. We are undoubtedly cut off from any support, after the catastrophes all along the coast. You were operating the radio, you know that already. There are no intact Imperial units remaining. If we are to escape, it is on our own power."

Lieutenant Karst adjusted his glasses. "However, that is also impossible. Without armor or mechanized transport, we shall quickly be overtaken by Gallian forces and most likely systematically wiped out. And if we spilt into individuals, we shall be individually caught and dealt with by the same patrols."

They were antsy now, wondering if their officer was finally going to give up. Lieutenant Karst had been gotten them out of sticky situations before, though, on the Federation front, but never in one this bad.

The answer that came shocked them, as usual.

"Therefore, I propose we attempt to make ourselves indispensible to the local populace, and influence them enough in our favor such that none of them will give us up the moment a Gallian patrol comes through."

Even for the Lieutenant's record, that was too farfetched. It was more likely that they'd be shot on the spot. Imperial atrocities against civilians were already well documented enough so that no Gallian dared let an "imp" any closer than rifle shot – and preferably artillery range. Nervous chuckles began to circulate through the unit.

"C'mon, Lieutenant! Even for you, that's a stretch." Kell's twin, Nell, also a redhead, pointed towards the Lieutenant, but then dropped the accusation a bit, his arm following suit. "Is it?" he asked, more towards himself than to the officer in particular.

"I assure you it is not. Now, for our first jaunt, we can't all go out. A mere dozen we may be, but that could be the entire male populace of one of these hamlets. I'll pick one man to go with me, the highest decorated one…"

It took all of Celes's willpower to not look follow everyone else's gaze to the little medal on his chest. However, he didn't have enough to stop a resigned groan.


	4. Isara's Shooting

Isara leaned over yet again hours later, hammering on yet another tread plate, this one on the other side of the Edelweiss. _Loose as well. We might have taken more hits on the treads than I thought. I should have been more careful driving._ With a sigh, she laid the hammer on the tread, snatched a wrench from one of the set dangling on her heavily-weighed skirt, and stuck in into the mess of machinery once more.

She smiled even as she found the bolts and worked them to the right, the mechanical clicking music to her ears. _Who'd have thought that after vehicle maintenance courses in high school, I'd be fixing tanks on the Gallian war front?_ She had an affinity for it, no doubt – she frequently confounded the other engineers of Squad 7 with her ideas, and her innovations were leaps and bounds ahead of the current standard-issue equipment. In fact, the smoke rounds that had been a literal lifesaver in the Marberry operation, just a day ago, had been created by her in a burst of inspiration. Elsewhere, back at base, the skeleton of an aeroplane – a vehicle that traveled through the _sky_ – was seeing construction. It would be her masterpiece. Truly, she was following in the footsteps of her father, Theimer, the one who had developed the awe-inspiring Edelweiss in the first place. She had done her best to maintain it - especially to improve on it - but if she got that thing to work, no one, not even the Darcsen haters, could deny her ingenuity. And convincing those haters to give up their most fervent emotion...

A timid footstep behind her made Isara give a small "hmph" of annoyance, hands still busy, mind still elsewhere.

Before she could ask who it was, though, the person spoke. "Isara?" a low alto said behind her.

Isara looked up, surprised; it was Rosie, wearing a sheepish expression, head turned to let some of her bound red hair conceal her embarrassed face. She got up, wiping her hands on her skirt, staining the light blue with more grease. "Hi, Rosie," she said awkwardly. "How can I help you?"

Rosie turned from side to side, as if uncertain. Finally, she raised a crude doll, made from scraps of cloth and stitching – but something that Isara recognized instantly. It was the doll she'd made for her for the Feast, a lucky protective charm. Her heart leapt – she thought Rosie had trashed it before the operation.

"Well… you have already." Isara's heart jumped again. _Rosie! You're actually…_ She quashed that line of thought, waiting for the stinger that accompanied Rosie's Darcsen prejudice. They had been progressing in friendship, especially after Rosie's full realization of the costs of hatred at the Fouzen massacres during the last operation, where Darcsens had been burned en masse in mere spite as Squad 7 had taken the industrial center. But Rosie's flat refusal of accepting the gift before Marberry was a dream-crushing move, and Isara steeled herself for the insult.

"You mean the doll I made?" she offered carefully. "I didn't know you kept it."

"You said it was a protective charm, didn't you?" Isara heard noises from around the Edelweiss – she cursed inwardly. She didn't want this to turn into another scene.

"I still owe you one from the Feast, so… anything you want, just name it." Rosie looked back down again as if ashamed.

Isara knew now that everyone around was looking at her, knew that Largo was most likely gaping, mouth hanging open, Alicia and Welkin – goodness, everyone knew they were a couple except them – with expressions of benevolent happiness on their faces. But she didn't care anymore; Rosie was giving ground in her hatred, and Isara was going to ride this advantage to the hilt. She fished for a thought of how best to connect with Rosie, to end her entrenched belief, opened her mouth to voice it.

Her words came out as a mere "erk".

The sniper's bullet ripped into the base of her front left shoulder, penetrating through the armored lining of her uniform like a scythe through wheat. The skin parted easily – the thin layer of muscle cutting away just as fast, and then the weight hit bone, flattening itself out and embedding in the flesh that closed around it in reflex, shattering the entire shoulder blade. Shockwaves from the impact flooded into the surrounding tissue, bruising it and drawing blood, blood that would not exit through the wound but flood the chest cavity.

Worst of all, the shock went straight to her heart.

Isara stood for a second – heard the reverb of the report – and toppled to the side like a felled tree.

She heard screams above her – of her name, of a sniper, for a medic, for people to pick up their weapons. Shots were fired – a single report, they'd gotten him. Probably Marina, the deadeye. But it was all so far away…

Her main regret was that she had never gotten to ask Rosie to sing.

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**And so, the first chapter of Isara's Survival is finished. Too much violence? Flashbacks confusing? Isara currently still unchanged? Problems are abound, but improvements can be only prompted with feedback. Suggest, comment, complain, review! It's all worth it in the end - and there are internet cookies for those who leave their opinions.**


	5. Chapter 2: Counterfeit Gallians

**Another day, another blurb. Lieutenant Karst is such a fun character to write from another's viewpoint. Writing from his own viewpoint would be boring, though, because there'd be little conflict, but other characters feeling his might? So awesome. He lets me do explaining (lampshaded to the juvenile Celes) without it feeling like stupid exposition, although I'm starting to (probably incorrectly) get the idea that I could have the Lieutenant break the fourth wall and it not be a surprise.**

**For all of you who smiled in Chapter 8 at the awesome casualness of the officer at the wounded soldier incident, here's another past reference.**

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"So, this _plan_ of yours… just what inspired it?" Celes grunted as he beat back another branch. He was in his standard-issue plainclothes, however much sense that made, as was the Lieutenant. A brown, heavily worn leather jacket – an effect artificially created by laundering it with stones before actual use – went with a blue pair of cloth pants, pants that failed to protect his legs from the brambles and roots in the woods completely. He also thought that they nothing like Gallians.

With a curse, he caught himself on a thorn, and carefully disentangled himself in a few seconds. By the time he looked forward, Lieutenant Karst had pulled meters ahead of him.

"Do you remember the two Gallians who honored Fritz?" the Lieutenant called back. "Would you have shot them on sight?"

Celes started and almost snagged himself on the same thorn again. "Well… no," he said sheepishly. "Sir, you know have trouble shooting anyone."

_The Lieutenant raised a fist – there were two Gallian soldiers, one male, one female, kneeling in front of an old cabin. The male was obviously an officer, the female a noncommissioned one with her obviously non-regulation red scarf, but they appeared unalert – in quite the emotional state, actually._

_Lieutenant Karst dropped a hand, flattening the fingers: hold fire, be ready. And like that, he crashed through the brush as noisily as he could, startling the Gallians into leaping into a crouch – but Celes, Barnett, and Heinrich marched forward as three faceless Imps, rifles at their hips, covering the Gallians; they didn't dare lose the Lieutenant now, despite their sudden trepidation._

His officer had stopped to let him catch up, and Celes crashed through another thicket, jumped a root, and dodged a trunk to stand in front of him. He panted, but the Lieutenant was as unruffled as ever, tilting his head as he responded. "Jacelern, I know of your weakness – that's why I let your carry that kit of yours with you at all times." The trooper blinked; he was holding a duffel mainly filled with medical supplies. As a concession to the rest of the men who vehemently insisted, he'd stuffed Kell's light carbine, the near axe-like "Francisca", into a box just in case of trouble, although in the end he expected he would have to give it to Lieutenant Karst if it came to that. "You're most useful to me keeping the men intact and their morale high, than as a trooper. At the former role, you excel; in the latter role," he said, gently smiling, "I would have had you shipped out a long time ago."

The reluctant trooper took the news sheepishly. He knew this already, but it was still a bit embarrassing to hear. "Ehhh… well, sir, I guess I couldn't have, even if I had more gut than I do."

The Lieutenant slowly dropped his smile into his normal cool, bored expression as he continued to explain. "By showing compassion, they showed their humanity. And although we can shoot anonymous faces that we have never seen before, to kill a fellow human being is something that only the most depraved can accomplish. When we talked that day, they ceased to be targets, and became friends."

_Heinrich knelt in front of the mound of earth, marked with an Imperial semiautomatic rifle and helmet. "Sir, this helmet… it's Fritz's, sir," he let out incredulously. Fritz had hared off alone in the middle of a patrol after a noise in the dark – the Unit had lost him soon after. Coming across his helmet on a mound of disturbed earth told the bad news._

_Heart pounding, Celes took the role of clearing the cabin, opening the door, rifle presented ahead of him. What he saw was a sudden callback – bloodstained sheets, discarded compresses, a few capsules of spent Ragnaid – and the scent of death. There were no professional tools, but the former medical student saw enough to know failed first aid when he saw it. He turned back to the Lieutenant, beginning to realize what the Lieutenant might have been getting at. "There are signs of medical treatment inside the cabin, sir."_

Irritably, Celes started forward again, Lieutenant Karst in tow. Marberry flooded back into Celes's consciousness, threatening another breakdown, but he plucked the image of that devil scout woman from the previous day and compared it to the long-faced officer that he had encountered long ago, forcibly suppressing any direct images from Marberry from filling his mind. It was a perfect match. "But we met on the battlefield anyways, like you said – do you remember that woman? She was leading those flankers, and quite brutally, might I add. Are you saying that she was perfectly willing to shoot us as 'friends'?"

Celes wanted to draw the carbine and fire it off in frustration after hearing the Lieutenant's infuriating response. "We are friends, Jacelern, but I would expect nothing less: that was a battlefield."

The trooper lunged towards his commanding officer, intending to yank Lieutenant Karst to face him – but he relented, simply slapping his hand against his thigh as he caught up closer with him yet again. "And this isn't going to be? We're Imperials, sir, and they're Gallian civilians. The moment they realize us for what we are –" he shook his excuse for a Gallian jacket sleeve at him – "they'll have bullets in their head before we can say 'don't want to die.' If they don't start this, this _battlefield_ of yours immediately, my name isn't Celestyn!"

The Lieutenant merely quickened his pace. "Would you prefer to be called Faas?"

Celes bit back a wheelbarrow's worth of cursing as they continued to trek in silence. He still hadn't even been told the plan yet.


	6. The Fate of Isara

**Grayjack72: "More" could mean a lot of things. :3**

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The scene that exploded after Isara fell was one of absolute chaos.

"ISARA! ISARA!" Welkin knelt on the ground in front of his sister's broken body in shock, hands on her unwounded shoulder, shaking her, growing more and more violent as she failed to respond, head lolling limply in the dirt. "IS!"

_Crack_. A powerful slap arrived at the end of Alicia's hand, jerking his head back and stopping his hysterics cold. "Welkin, stop, she's still alive!" she chastised. "Be careful!" Even so, she wasn't completely rational herself, crouching down herself.

A rifle, this one Gallian, fired. Moments later Marina Wulfstan, Squad 7's deadliest sniper, called in her report. "Sir, enemy neutralized," she said in her detached, unfriendly way. Even so, she wasn't completely immune to what had happened. Black hair, although not Darcsen, matched the color of her expression as she quietly let out, "What kind of sniper goes for an unarmed engineer…"

At the same time, Rosie was standing in place, completely in shock, eyes wide, mouth agape. "Isara?" was all that could escape, a whisper in the middle of a storm of activity. It was as if she was frozen in time, unable to resynchronize with the events happening around her.

Largo had kept himself together; with an immediate cry of "Medic!" the moment he'd seen the blood, he was now rushing back to the scene, Mina, Squad 7's medical officer, in tow. "Isara, we've got the medic here for you, now everyone else, clear out!" The big man's logical call was unheeded. "Medic's here, damn you, MOVE!"

Alicia lunged away, having eyes only for Isara's twisted face. Rosie backed away two steps, expression still blank. Lieutenant Gunther still failed to move – with a sigh, Largo knelt down and gently but firmly pulled him away. "Come on, boss, that even means you."

Hysterical tears began to run down Welkin's face as he watched the medic kneel down in front of his adopted sister. "Oh, Valkyur protect, Is, what happened?"

Other members of Squad 7 were hurrying around the scene now as well. There were calls to a general alert, scouts moving out unordered to ensure that no Imperial assault was forthcoming after such an underhanded move. Soldiers bustled into their positions without Welkin's guidance – they knew from a glance that he wouldn't be in any state to lead them now.

_Six hours later_

The afternoon sun shined down upon Marberry, a harbinger of good things.

Welkin felt like nature, the nature he had studied and loved, was mocking him.

Alicia was curled up comfortingly into his side as they sat outside the hastily erected medical tent. Normally, he'd have enjoyed contact, but at the moment all he could think of was Isara, her shocked face as she fell, her bloodsoaked uniform as she was carried off by Largo and Marina, watched over carefully by Fina.

For hours Fina had been working as best she could, using her supplies, tools, and expertise lavishly to – at least hopefully – stabilize Isara's condition. The afternoon was in full swing. The members of Squad 7 carried out their daily work, continuing to clear the beaches in readiness for the Gallian regulars to secure the region, the Gallian regulars that were infuriatingly late.

Alicia stirred against his side, and he shakily reached a hand around her shoulder, hugging her close, leaning against her himself. Nothing was going right.

Fina suddenly walked through the cloth flap of a door, stained with Isara's blood, matted with sweat, wearing a tired expression. Welkin practically exploded upright, dragging a hurriedly-awakened Alicia up with him, bursting with questions. "Fina! Isara! Is she okay? She's going to be okay, right?"

Fina's expression was all the answer she needed to supply, an answer that opened up an abyss beneath Welkin's feet and sent him plummeting into their depths. "I did the best I could, Lieutenant."

She walked a step past them – the couple hurried back next to her, faces disbelieving. "No, Mina, you're not telling us something! What's going to happen?" Alicia demanded, putting a hand on Mina's shoulder, pulling her back to face the two of them.

The medic did her best to hide behind her blonde bangs, but she couldn't escape in the end, raising her tortured gaze to their expectant faces. "She's dying, sir."

Welkin and Alicia were shocked speechless as Mina continued. "I stopped the bleeding, especially the internal bleeding, but the bullet was too close to her heart. It's not damaged… which is why she isn't dead right now... but the bullet is too deep in for me to cut it out – her own heartbeat makes it impossible. Each beat worms it closer in, and in a day or two, it'll push against the tissue, interfere with the normal movement, and kill her." She turned away, a tear running down her face. "I'm sorry, sir."

The lieutenant moved Alicia's stunned hand off to replace it with his own, bringing Fina close, practically shouting in her face. "Valkyur, Fina, is there _nothing_ you can do?"

Mina almost lunged away, but thought better of it, giving her honest opinion instead. "Sir… if I were more skilled, a trained surgeon instead of a field medic… maybe I could get it out. But I'm not, and there's no way we'll get one here on time, what with the regulars being late."

Welkin grimaced, but let her go. "Then we'll just have to find one," he said with finality. He turned to Alicia. "Are you with me?"

Tears wetting her face, his sergeant, his _friend_, nodded. "Always," she whispered.

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**No, you don't get a cookie if you guess who it's going to be. :p**

**I kind of get a rushed impression from this – my description seems a bit lackluster compared to before, but eh, I might give this thing a once-over later.**

**Also, normally the next chapters would come (chronologically) before the "six hours later" but I didn't want to have to write them all up (and they're a mouthful) before posting the entirety of this. Enjoy! Review, suggest, complain, and all that makes up a wonderful review! **


	7. The Gallian Side of Darcsen Persecution

**Cloner4000: As awesome as it would be, no. :3 But he still gets some more awesomeness this chapter.**

**Two blurbs in one day. Wow, I'm bored.**

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It was right when they made it to the forest's edge that they heard the machine gun.

Instinctively, Celes took a knee, eyes scanning what lay beyond the trees for the source of the noise. Pastoral meadows and hillsides were the first thing he noticed – a gravel road winding its leisurely way through and around them. In the distance, the beginnings of a small hamlet could be seen, the stone walls of cottages merely grey blobs the size of watermelon seeds.

There were no bullets shredding the underbrush around them, which was both fortunate and logical – the long echoes that the gun produced signified that the gun was a long distance away and most likely not pointed at them. The former medical student stood back up, looking to the Lieutenant for guidance.

Lieutenant Karst had already raised a pair of binoculars, produced from somewhere in his jacket, and was looking carefully at the village, especially at the hill that blocked the rest of it from view.

"Sir, do you think that the Gallians have made it this far already?" he asked. It was a logical enough thought.

Without looking down from his binoculars, the imperturbable Lieutenant gave his answer. "The Gallian regulars are the ones who are meant to push ahead. And they're late again. If they would just eliminate that incompetent, overly bombastic, General Damon, with the spirit and morale of the militia being what it is, they could actually win this war."

Celes blinked. Such a sentiment was one he hardly expected – the _militia_ of Gallia could defeat the Imperial regulars? "With all due respect, sir, that's ridiculous. Weren't the regulars on the beaches?"

"Jacelern, _those_ were the militia." Celes gaped. He hadn't expected that.

"In any case," Lieutenant Karst continued, "Gallia's policy of neutrality means that only career men and belligerents join the army, as they have little need for it. The militia are where the heart of their military strength is. On the other hand, we, the Empire, lean on our military strength for everything we do, conscripting our soldiers to supplement our numbers in times of war." Celes thought of his own termination of medical school – he'd been so close to getting his diploma at his young age, being a brilliant student. All that he would have needed to go through were a few bureaucratic tests, but in the end the war-loving headmaster, one who had never been a doctor himself, had selected him as one of those to be conscripted.

"You know, we could have attempted to ally with Gallia, but the Emperor decided it would be faster to invade it." Putting down the optics, he shrugged. "He would have been right for any other country."

Head spinning with the thoughts, Celes sighed. "So, are you going to tell me the plan yet?"

"Actually, no." It was all Celes could do to not slam his head into a tree in frustration, until he heard the second part of the Lieutenant's statement. "It's irrelevant now. That's not a Gallian Erma they're firing, that's a Uranus."

The lighter Imperial machinegun abruptly stopped firing, making the Lieutenant nod. "Yes, see, it's overheated. The Uranus does that if you don't fire in bursts. That's definitely Gallians operating it."

Celes put down his bag and reached for the binoculars – Lieutenant Karst gave them to him, and pointed to the hilltop. A cluster of tiny blue dots that Celes had thought were flowers danced around on top of it. Moving aside the gauze band over his left eye to fully use the optics, he suddenly saw the truth: a full dozen men in Gallian uniform looked down at the hamlet, a quartet of them attempting to cool a smoking machine gun with their canteens. They looked from side to side, pointing down to the village repeatedly. "Sir, what are they doing? I'm not hearing any return fire from our forces."

There was noise from the bag beside his leg; Celes looked down as the Lieutenant drew out the metal case that held the carbine, the ZM Kar "Francisca". As he pulled it out, Celes looked on quizzically. "Sir, just what are you –"

Lieutenant Karst loaded the weapon with one of the ten magazines in the box, leaned against a tree for stability, then raised it towards the hill, a laughable prospect. "I'm going to damage the barrel while it's still soft."

"Lieutenant, that's almost a mile away, you're not honestly–"

"No, I'm not, Jacelern. Put on the bandolier, load up, and be quiet."

"Sir, you know I can't –"

"Those aren't our men they're shooting. Those are civilians."

Celes opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out, as full realization of what the Lieutenant was saying hit him. The reasons for the militia's actions were nonsensical at best, but the evidence – the lack of resistance – was clear enough.

A cold yet burning fury rose within his chest, a dragon that wanted to release itself. He bit off his mockery with a nod, filling up the leather belts with magazines as Lieutenant Karst took aim, carefully adjusting the sights and looking past them to gauge his range.

Right as he fired, Celes finished, and he brought the binoculars to his eyes again to view, just to see if the Lieutenant had done it once again. He shouldn't have doubted. A second later, the carbine burped, a small sound that couldn't have made it past a hundred meters. Another second later, the quartet of blue clad militia jumped away from their attempts. One of them looked carefully at the barrel, and slapped it – hopping away waving his hand in the air the next moment, the barrel still overheated. The other three looked around uneasily, but picked up weaponry – Imperial as well, ZM MPs – clumsily, as if unfamiliar with them, waving at the others to do so as well. Armed as such, they then all dashed towards the village, the crest of the hill swallowing them out of view.

The pieces all suddenly fit together. Gallians shooting civilians with Imperial weapons. "Dear Valkyur… those bastards," he hissed. "They plan on pinning these war crimes on us!"

His officer's response was only to hand him the carbine. "They'll have to exterminate the whole town then. Probably Darcsen haters if they're willing to do that, killing even the mere sympathizers in the town."

Celes nodded; it only made sense. Even outside of the Empire, which shamelessly forced the "darkhairs" to work in ragnite mines and camps – never mind the fact that black hair like he had was only superficially different to Darcsen dark indigo – they weren't liked at all around most of Europa. His own half-Darcsen background forced him to wear that gauze over his left eye at all times... except around certain people.

He affixed his lieutenant straight in the eye with a steely gaze, Lieutenant Karst's blue-eyed visage reflected in his mismatched one, both eyes brown – but one damningly streaked with Darcsen blue. "Let's kill these bastards, sir."

The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow. "There's a whole detachment of them, you know."

Celes weighed his life against the hamlet's; thoughts of women and children in the same broken state as his comrades at Marberry filled him with suicidal courage. "Even if we can't kill them, we can at least drive them off or buy time for some to escape."

The bespectacled man nodded, pulling out his personal sidearm from a concealed shoulder holster. "My sentiments exactly."

Seconds later they were jogging towards the village, with only a carbine and handgun to combat a dozen heavily armed men…

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**Who's going to win? Actually, the answer should be pretty clear. :p **

**Celes and Lieutenant Karst don't have personal radios because the time period (technology of WWII) hadn't developed them yet. This is a major gripe I had with several other fics, so I'm making my stand here.**

**This is all still before "six hours later". There should be two or three more blurbs before we make it back to the Gallian perspective, and one or two more before Isara gets some story again (she's kind of, er, unconscious and dying right now)… so you Isara lovers, bear with me here!**

**If anything seems remotely off about the way things are happening here, lemme know! Reviews are awesome!**


	8. First Contact

**Cloner4000: The Lieutenant is strictly forbidden from using heavy weapons due to the warp in the time-space-awesome continuum it would create. Also, because then the war would be over, and I wouldn't have a story.**

**Although on a more serious note, the "munchkin" stature of the Lieutenant will be downplayed soon. He'll still be awesome, but things are going to come up that make his military prowess a bit less relevant…**

**Side note: why is it that every time I edit a document by a few words, the word count jumps by several hundred? Chapter 7 had a typo (same =/= shame) that when corrected added 400 words. Wtf?**

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Cold with hatred, Celes started running down the gravel road to the hamlet at a breakneck speed, right before Lieutenant Karst caught him by the shoulder as he jogged at a much more conservative, but still fast rate. He pointed at the still-tiny houses in the distance. "If we dash there, we won't have any energy left to fight." Only having just started moving, neither was winded yet, but circumstances promised to soon change that. "Either we save some of them, or we save none of them, is that clear?"

The subordinate growled, but acquiesced by instantly dropping his pace down to match his superior's own. Solid leather boots, the one part of their uniform that made the transition from soldier to civilian disguise, skipped lightly across the gravel road; without heavy armor or extra wargear, only Celes's comparatively modest medical duffel – slung across his back – to slow them, they advanced much faster than even the fittest Imperial unit could dashing all out.

A quarter of the way there. They started hearing the ZM MP shots, the light rifle ammunition chattering in a sinister fashion. The first houses were still miniscule, far away.

A half of the way there. Screams began to cross the distance, cries of anger, rage, pain, fear, grief. Celes blinked back tears, knowing that there was still nothing he could do. Their progress along the gently curved road showed them more of the hamlet: a few more cottages, a fountain in the middle of the road. There was a small wooden fence with a gate at waist height right before the first house.

Three fourths of the way there. More subtle sounds filled the air now. Loud commands of the Gallian murderers – don't let them get away, two more here – could be heard. Celes had stopped crying. It interfered with his breathing, and that was the most important factor in his most important goal right now. He had sped up, Lieutenant Karst had followed, and both of them had no extra air to spend on emotions. There was only the thought of the incoming enemy, legs pumping furiously, months of conditioning and operations against the Federation in the south showing their true worth.

One hundred meters until the fence. They could see the fountain, and the streets and alleys that surrounded it on both sides, house fronts classically decorated with picket fences and vegetable gardens. It was an idyllic scene, until one realized that the fountain was chipped with bullets, a villager's body resting at piece bent over the side. The water spewed clear – it pooled red.

Unspoken, Celes and Lieutenant Karst split into two in a classic Imperial wide formation, going left and right. Celes listed on his original straight course along the road, soon running into tall grass and through wildflowers that smiled cheerily in the sun, unaware of the atrocities going on a rifle shot away, while the Lieutenant went over a gentle knoll, decorated with a few sparse saplings. The sky was blue, the sun beautiful, and the clouds white and peaceful… setting the stage for an impossible combat.

Seconds later, both of them crashed into position behind the fence, mostly hidden by the vegetation, panting with exertion. They had full view of the hamlet entrance now, as the grass began to be tamed by human hand immediately after the barrier. The settlement was a one street affair, side alleys little more than paths to the back doors of the homes that were the majority of the buildings. The main road followed no logical path, winding left and right to follow the contours of the small dips and rises in the ground without human interference. Overall, it was a beautiful scene, something that would have made Celes's heart grip with homesickness – if it hadn't been for the ruined fountain in the center, a gruesome example of the horrors of war. They could hear the enemy now, but couldn't see them – even so much as loud speech commenting on how they had to wipe everyone out could be heard.

Suddenly, a small Darcsen child flew into view from right behind the nearest house, dragged by the hand by her mother, of the same heritage. The mother wore an expression of dread fear; the daughter, shock and incomprehension. A small ragdoll was clutched in her hand, string hair flailing wildly in air with their flight.

A burst rang out, loud and close, less than twenty meters away – the Imperials-come-civilians raised their weapons in unison, looking for a target. But all they saw was the mother buck in her stride, lifting off the ground; one foot slipping on the ground, then the other; red spray in the air; and then she was down, a ruined mess of flesh and bone. Heartwrenchingly, her daughter still clasped at her hand, staring blankly at her once-alive mother, doll limply dragging along the street cobbles, staining it with the blood that ran in the streets.

Celes and Lieutenant Karst saw the first of their Gallian foes with their bare eyes walk out from behind the same building, calmly strolling as if in a park. As if in a dream, each watched carefully, meticulously, judging who they were up against. Surprisingly, it was a woman – her blonde hair up in a tight, severe bun for combat, squad insignia ripped off her blue uniform – untraceable. Slowly, she approached the Darcsens, commandeered Imperial rifle across her body towards the mother and child. A grim smile was on her face, ugly with hatred, as she dropped the magazine from the weapon and replaced it with one from an also-stolen bandolier across her chest. Merely ten meters away from each shocked Imperial, she stopped and slowly raised the weapon one-handed to the child's frozen head, savoring each moment that the adolescent stared back in absolute fear. "Scream for me!" the Gallian hissed with pleasure.

A second chatter of rounds rang out. A head exploded.

Not the child's.

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**I just realized that "scream for me" is one of Jane's lines, a pretty famous one. Oops. This is NOT Jane (That'd be horrible! She's not a Darcsen hater!... is she?) but the quote – and method of speech – is the same.**

**I realize that it might seem unrealistic for the Imperials to wait so long at the fence before advancing, turning into a forced scene of drama, but remember – this is urban combat in an unfamiliar zone. With only two men, the last thing you do is hare off into the unknown alone and unaided!**

**As for taking so long to shoot the Gallian… they were too busy watching just how much hatred she was holding, and also she wasn't immediately ready to fight, making them question themselves until that last dramatic moment. Although I must say the dramatic moment was more important to me.**

**I'm sorry to say that the combat ends here for today… but perhaps we're in order to head back to Squad 7, despite the break in chronological order. What sayeth thou? Post a review with your opinion by tomorrow, and perhaps you'll see an update then!**


	9. Retreated Racist Rampage

**skycomv2: Yeah, I looked it up. Jane hates the Imperials… for wrecking her flower shop? :D**

**For once, I didn't have an update for a day. SCANDALOUS, but for good reason. I couldn't decide what perspective to write the "battle" from, but eventually decided on this. It's quite amusing, despite the inherent atrocities (as opposed to atrociousness) in it.**

**Originally I had planned for a huge epic battle scene where our two heroes kill off each racist one by one, but then I realized the stupidity that that would require the racists to have – more likely, they'd run the moment resistance was put up. And so they do in this chapter, in quite the amusing fashion.**

**Also, it just occurred to me that Darcsen hair is a lot more blue than it is purple. o.0 I'm going to go and correct all of those references now… if I miss any, let me know!**

**And now back to our regularly scheduled battlefield drama…**

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Sergeant James Rooney of the Gallian militia's Squad 2 was having the time of his life. Despite their gun breaking at the most inopportune time – they hadn't even scored a kill, just sprayed it a whole lot over those dark-hairs' heads and wrecked a few windows until it overheated and had its barrel randomly buckle, damned unreliable Imperial goods – he was still going to get to kill a whole bunch of dark-hairs today. He hadn't enjoyed a hunt like this in years, ever since that one time he and some of his friends had come across that traveling family and had some fun with them. It was a perfect gift for having to miss their normal Feast celebrations yesterday due to their operations on Marberry, operations that he'd made sure to stay back in. He couldn't die before this day, after all.

As normal, the Darcsens had proved to be a slippery bunch. At the first spray of stolen heavy weapon fire along the street, each and every one of them had suddenly slunk into cellars and behind locked doors. Rooney knew that this meant little, though – all it meant was that they'd get to prowl through the streets and clear each little home out one by one. The outcome was clear enough.

There was no chain of command, no plan of attack. Each of them simply dispersed into the hamlet with their own agendas. Of course, the fact that they were all here meant that they shared one trait – each was a die-hard Darcsen hater, handpicked by him for this entertaining mission, from Larry whose business had been bankrupted by the curses of a Darcsen competitor to Marat the bookworm who thought that those evil people still hadn't been punished enough for their catastrophic calamity that carved out the entire Barious Desert.

And to tell the truth, why more people weren't in loathing of the stinking rats was beyond him. They were only good for the jobs that real Gallians were above: mining ragnite for example, or processing it. Basically any job that had to deal with the stink of raw ragnite was only good for Darcsen hands, clumsy as they were. The Empire, for all of its grabs at Gallia's ragnite reserves, had one thing going right – they had the Darcsens completely underneath their thumb in work camps or mines. Those who weren't more often than not died in streets and shanty towns like the animals they were, and often enough were fittingly hunted down, more often than not being killed for great sport.

He watched Linde, beautiful with her face twisted in righteous fury, bound off into an alleyway ahead of him. Rooney smiled, watching that lovely rear swing left and right underneath her shorter-than-regulation skirt before it disappeared. He'd gotten some of that often enough as they'd mutually planned – and more – for this little escapade. The mere insinuation that they could kill entire villages of dark-hairs was enough to get that foxy body into his bunk in seconds.

Marberry had just been retaken, after all. The Gallian regulars were late – perfect work by that magnificent man, Colonel Nicholas, delaying the gathering of supplies so that his little squad could get these runs in. This was the first of them, but in the week or so that Rooney had before they got themselves back in action, he planned on there not being a single Darcsen enclave left in this entire region of Gallia.

Now and then, there was a scream punctuated with the sound not unlike ripping cloth as various scattered dark-hairs, not hidden so well, felt the bite of the stolen weapons. Grinning evilly, he marveled at the Colonel's guile – there might be inquiries if the bodies turned up with Gallian bullets in them and brass scattered around, but make the whole scene look like a regular Empire genocide? Brilliant.

Wanting in on the fun before the rest of his mates had it all for themselves, he went ahead and fired a burst into the nearest door latch, bullets pounding into the lock, popping it free of the frame. With a jump onto the doorstep and a mighty kick, he flung the shattered portal open, to reveal a homely little scene, table, chairs, couch, ornamented mantel, the whole nine yards. The foyer behind the house was empty, like he'd guessed – but it wouldn't take long for him to clear each room full of bullets. "No survivors," the Colonel had said. He planned on that.

Rooney took one step into the room, then stopped. Had he just heard the popping of a rifle? Impossible. The Colonel had only supplied repossessed those wonderful ZM MPs, after all. Suddenly he felt uneasy. What if these Darcsens had some stolen Imperial arms of their own? Darcsens weren't allowed under law to have weapons in their homes – they might decide to reenact the Darcsen Calamity after all and take over, except with no Valkyur to stop them this time – but this area _had_ been under Imperial occupation, and they could have acquired some through theft…

Suddenly the empty room looked like a deathtrap. Cowering from the open doorway, hunkered over in a defensive crouch, the Gallian persecutor slowly took back his first step back outside, rifle jerking clumsily from side to side covering each door, expecting a crazed Darcsen to at any moment burst through with a Uranus in one hand and a grenade in the other.

Shockingly, he made it out alive, tripping when his foot met empty air and almost breaking his neck as he fell off the doorstep. Rooney cursed as he scrambled to his feet, kicking the small platform. Darcsen trap, it had to be one. Where were the snipers? Where were the mines? Valkyrur, there could be tripwires in the room right now!

His nerve shattered; he hurtled off after Linde. He had to get her, tell her it wasn't safe, get the men out of here. Running out onto the main road, he stopped. A Darcsen child was standing in the middle of it, next to her dead mother – and Linde, face heartachingly sweet as she milked the moment of the child's death for every last second of its worth.

"Scream for me!" she crowed, blissfully unaware of the ploy, the Darcsens were going to get them all!

Too late. He heard the fire, and Linde, poor Linde, his Linde, crumpled to the ground, brains scattered liberally in a meter wide radius.

The racist screamed her name – raised his ZM MP, cursed as the unfamiliar balance of the weapon literally flung it out of his hand far in front of him. As he clawed futilely after it, he then noticed the two crouching figures at the fenceline, weapons ready, a handgun and carbine. It had been a trap all along! Those pigs had known they were coming, and had the gall to use themselves – a child! – as bait!

With another wild scream, he raced back behind the cottage, fully expecting bullets to sheet out through windows, from behind fences, anywhere. When nothing came, he dashed away along his original path, out of the settlement, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"A TRAP! A TRAP! DARCSEN TRAP! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

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**Oh, James Rooney, how much you suck. Deliberately a scrappy, he'll return to make his bold moves – and flee in cowardice the moment he thinks things are going badly. Of course, he's not dumb, just shortsighted, so expect him to make a reappearance the moment he realizes that this isn't what he thinks it is.**

**And if you think this is a little too farfetched, that's kind of the point of this character. You'll hate the way he's written – and hate what he stands for. Hopefully. (If you're somehow a Darcsen hater as well, why are you playing this game? For that matter, how did you play this game without becoming a Darcsen lover?)**

**Leave reviews! This show - I mean, story - will go on with your help!**


	10. The Figurative Boot

**Baka baka baka! Stupid ordering system. I uploaded the last document in my storage... but document "10" doesn't go to the end, it goes between "1" and "2". Retarded computer.**

**But hey, thanks for pointing that out! You guys are awesome!**

**It's occurred to me that I never actually described Rooney's appearance. Can I ask what people generally imagined him as before I make my own decision? **

**To all my faithful readers and reviewers: Thanks a lot for continuing. One more blurb, and our protagonist will finally get to meet Isara…**

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It was with a raised eyebrow that Celes watched the blonde haired racist panic in an epic fashion, commandeered weapon ripping itself out of his hand right as he turned and fled.

"TRAP! TRAP! DARCSEN TRAP! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

If it weren't for the seriousness of the whole operation, he would have exploded with laughter at the man's absolute lack of comprehension. "Sir, should we pursue?" he fired off to his superior a dozen meters off to the right.

"Negative, Jacelern. He's given us an excellent plan. Circle around –"

As much as he would have liked to agree, his eyes drew back to the center of the road. The Darcsen child was now triply stunned – once for her mother's death, once for her apparent death, and one last time for her salvation. He wanted to stop the fighting, to simply run over to her and comfort her as best he can. Every instinct ingrained into him as a medical student screamed at him to throw down his weapon.

"Jacelern, that's an order. Fall in!" The Lieutenant's voice approached a bark. Five years of medical school fought with six months field experience with Lieutenant Karst.

There wasn't even a chance.

The former student spun on his heel and pipelined into the Lieutenant's wake, all limbs tucked in as tight as possible, perfectly hidden by the fence. The bend of his body was too low, making firing impossible – but it didn't need to be. Stealth and protection were the only things that mattered.

_It was Unit 29-4's first operation, on the Federation/Empire border, against an artillery battery. Shallow drainage ditches around each gun the only cover other than the machinegun nests and magazine in the center of the quartet. It was a cunning construction – any illusion of victory after making it to the guns would be instantly broken once the heavy weapons began firing._

_None of them had any illusion what the outcome would be when they heard they were to capture or otherwise disable the post. Fifty fresh conscripts underneath a single officer with combat experience, the only one among them who did, were going to get thrown as a sacrificial suppression force so that the armored companies could punch through. The First Europan War had claimed almost every other male, and each one who had survived made sure to immediately made sure to make himself an officer – or a tank pilot. The Empire did everything to ensure their survival, but foot troops were little more than scouts and cannon fodder._

_But their grizzled Lieutenant had a plan for everything. A week before, after receiving the scout reports, he had forced them into the strangest drills, running through tiny sewer pipes for hours each day. When they made the attack, as expected all the gun crew immediately withdrew to center; heavy weapons unleashed in the squad's direction. Any other squad would have been cut to ribbons while attempting to assault._

_Instead, the guns hit nothing but dirt. Not even the top of a head poked above the ditches, as the unit carefully filed into ditches like clockwork – quite literally just like a drill. The Federation soldiers stuck to their machineguns in futility too long, only at the last moment reaching for their grenades – too slow, as dedicated demolition charges flipped out of the ditches first._

_Explosions, then a final, earthshaking one as the magazine went off. A huge, blue ball of fire. The battle was over. The battery was theirs._

_And when the casualty reports came back after the advance, infantry deaths in the hundreds, Unit 29-4 looked at each other, not a single head missing from their tables, and vowed to follow Lieutenant Karst as long as the war lasted._

Celes let his jaw open in exertion, but more importantly a feral grin, as he dedicated himself fully to the operation. He was the Lieutenant's tool – and right now, they had Gallians to chase.

He had always had trouble killing – he had never seen a reason for it, when facing the enemy, it was so hard to find a motivation to pull the trigger. He had fought mostly with his skills of medicine, letting the others use bullets to survive.

Fortunately for the racists, medical philosophies ordered him to preserve life. Unfortunately, if he wasn't behind a line of guns, it was his responsibility to raise one himself.

And so he did, footsteps landing in the Lieutenant's own.

His superior stopped, peered over the fence, and blindly slid his handgun over the side of the fence, firing a series of quick taps before moving on. Celes matched his move, looking over the rough wooden barrier. He saw nothing more than a few fleeing bodies, now dragging a wounded member with them; added to their misery by emptying the carbine's magazine in their direction.

"Suppressing fire, just harass them, don't let them realize that it's just us!" Celes jerked and followed in the direction of Lieutenant Karst's voice. Twenty meters farther along, they were wrapping around the side of the village fence.

They popped over the edge again, and were treated with a second look at the fleeing group, although at a much further distance. Without needing to remain truly hidden anymore, they aimed and fired. The small caliber rounds lost most of their power with distance, but that wasn't the main purpose. The slam of metal into their armor was enough motivation for that particular group to keep fleeing.

This time it was Celes who led, flipping over the fence. They couldn't just circle the town, and the Lieutenant had expected as much from his subordinate.

As they fought, Celes's last vestiges of morality broke down. He no longer held the illusion that he could simply shoot for limbs, the ground, or the nearby air, but allowed himself to line up shots that a cold-blooded marksman would have been proud of. When they encountered a pair of men attempting to break down a door with their rifles, Celes fired straight for the trauma points. Fortunately for the hunters, this was where the armor was intentionally the thickest, but the intention to kill was undeniable. They fled the moment they recovered.

The feeling grew worse as they harried the duo further, planting a couple of rounds between their shoulderblades which was sight enough for another hunter to lose heart and begin fleeing with them.

A proning hunter, apparently waiting for someone to come out of a deadend alley, found his shoulder blade shattered as shots from the Lieutenant's pistol cascaded into it. Even as he scrambled up and skittered away, Celes was able to riddle a leg with the contents of an entire magazine, frowning as he watched him limp away. He didn't feel remorse because the man's wounds were most likely crippling. He felt it because he hadn't killed him.

And in this vein of bloodthirst, the operation continued. A stocky bearded man was shot and chased off from around a corner, two women were wounded from behind a tree, and a fourth round faced hunter had a shot clip his forehead, knocking him unconscious to be dragged off by a couple of his compatriots.

Ironically, the panicking blonde was the last in the village, running around confused, hearing the shots but unable to find any of his squadmates. When he rushed blindly past a tree which Celes had hid behind, it was the perfect chance to down the one who had screamed trap – more accurately, was still screaming about that – and begun the entire flight. But upon raising the carbine to take a headshot the moment he crossed Cele's position, Lieutenant Karst stopped him with a hand on the barrel of his weapon. For a moment, he was confused, but then he grunted and followed once more. The panicking man was more valuable to them alive, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

It took the screamer a little longer than normal to realize that he was all alone, all while Celes's finger itched on his trigger. Finally shutting his mouth, eyes darting all around him in paranoia, he made a straight dash back for the hill, the same crest that they had come from, the same crest that they all went back too and over, retreating in an unorganized mob.

They hadn't even bothered to take the ruined gun with them.

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**So, I decided to break Celes's morals down a bit. Expect them to come back up again once he realizes what he prefers more... he's not going to remain like this for long.**

**If I ever decide to extend this story, note that the flashbacks will be made into scenes of their own – unless you'd prefer that already?**

**Coming up, the villagers will meet their saviors – as will Squad 7's Isara.**

**But it's not happening without reviews. See that button. CLICK IT. DO IT. DO IT NOW. Even if it's just an affirmative, every last word you leave is another reason for me to return to the computer. Go, go, don't let me delay you any further!**


	11. Chapter 3: Acceptance

**skycomv2: Well, James Rooney, "the small fry soldier" will soon prove to be a major antagonist. There IS a big cheese commander – Colonel Nicholas – but he won't have a relevant entrance until much later. I mean, I could introduce him, but it would be pretty pointless in this stage of the story.**

**Xanthera: You are going to leave a long review with your opinions and suggestions after you finish reading this blurb. DO IT. DO IT NOW.**

**And now, our two Imperial protagonists deal with the aftermath of running into a town like a pair of avenging angels…**

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Celes watched the last Gallian hunter disappear over the crest of the hill, arms flapping and discipline gone, and sighed with relief, although also with no small amount of disappointment that he hadn't killed more of them. Operation complete.

It was then that Celes realized just how tired he was. Pipelining was incredibly taxing, using muscles normally not exercised in running, and as he lowered his carbine, every muscle in his core and legs decided to melt into a puddle of wet tissue. The light medical duffel on his back suddenly felt like a two ton weight, the rifle an anvil, forcing him to sit down on the spot, head reeling.

Lieutenant Karst was better, if a bit stiff, but then again, his formal walking pace always appeared so. It was with such a pace that the commanding officer strode to his subordinate, sidearm holstered and hidden once more. Instead of addressing him orally, though, the Lieutenant gently nudged him with a boot.

The former medical student started, and twisted his head to look. "What is it, sir?" The informal method of greeting was a bit of surprise – then he realized just how his voice sounded to himself, thin and distant. The blood rushing to his head made things hard to hear, disrupting his concentration and perception. He blinked. He knew that, he realized with consternation. Truly he was in a sorry state if he couldn't even dredge up minor facts of medicine from his brain.

The Lieutenant watched the changing expressions with an amused smile, waiting for Celes to realize they weren't out of trouble yet.

He wasn't disappointed; Celes swore furiously and lurched back up, hands pawing at himself searching for the proper kit. They slid over the stock of his carbine, adjusted the sweat soaked cloth over his brow and eye, and came to rest on the duffel. His eyes narrowed in comprehension, and he slid it in front of him, opening it and plunging his hands in immediately, confirming the presence of bandages, anesthetics, antibiotics, and more.

Those same eyes widened again when he realized the morality issue he had just brought down on himself - how could he enjoy killing, and yet still work as a doctor without hypocrisy? He shook his head, purging it of the bloodlust that had come over him in those moments of combat. It was over, and he never wanted to do that again. When he looked up at his commanding officer, who had obviously known just what he was feeling, he felt idiotic and unworthy of the smile still on the Lieutenant's face. Wearily standing up, he snapped a quick salute, half-serious, but also half-mocking. Receiving one in turn, he rushed off into the village, looking for the injured. He had lives to save.

Painting his smile into a more realistic worried expression, Lieutenant Karst jogged off to find the leaders of the village. Diplomacy was his role. Pacification was Celes's.

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"People of this village!" rang the resounding call. "It is safe now! The killers are gone! Come out, and bring your wounded!"

So Lieutenant Karst blared in his best parade voice, standing in what must have been the village center, despite its position ahead of most of the town. It was the same area that they had begun the fight. The area was marred by the dead man in the fountain and the corpse the fallen woman. More importantly, however, to avoid any bad first impressions, were the corpse of the now-headless militia woman and the young girl who had plastered herself onto his leg and sobbingly refused to let go. The Lieutenant took it in stride. She was not so different than his own daughter, then.

His voice was one of command, and its volume meant there wasn't a person in the hamlet that couldn't hear it, even if they were hunkered in a cellar. Slowly, other faces began to appear, at windows and through slightly opened doors. The sight of a man that none of them recognized, with his hawkish, almost noble voice, was almost enough to send them into hiding again, but the young girl and dead Gallian soldier were just enough impetus to guide the legs of one man into stepping out of his doorway, carefully watching his step and surroundings as if he expected some sort of trap was laid.

Almost as if that was a signal, the rest of the survivors poured out into the streets. There were calls for loved ones, screams of grief as they found friends or family dead, cries of anguish upon finding wounds. A general scramble ensued as men, women, and children combined filtered through the hamlet as they pursued the fates of the others in town.

For some, though, that agenda was finding out just what had transpired, and that meant confronting this strange newcomer who spoke with such authority. Lieutenant Karst soon found himself loosely surrounded by a quartet of men hefting improvised weaponry – a shovel, a cooking pot, for example. Unperturbed, he kept a hand on the little girl's head, patting it in the most reassuring way possible. He eyed the men; three of them were Darcsen, but one was definitely purebred Gallian. None of the Darcsens, not even those running elsewhere, wore their traditional patterned capes, but that was to be expected – with the Gallians obviously fighting to kill the Darcsen populace, the first instinct would be to ditch any blatant signs of Darcsen heritage, although it probably wouldn't matter in the end.

Face offended, one of the older Darcsen men dropped his hammer and began coaxing the girl away from the Lieutenant's leg, murmuring gentle condolences and kind requests. It proved quite fruitless.

Scowling, another Darcsen – a young man, perhaps in his early twenties – brandished his fencepost as threateningly as he could underneath Lieutenant Karst's chin, which was to say not very. His eyes, though, were cobalt flames, speaking of violence and hatred. "Let her go."

A normal person might have rolled his or her eyes. It was hardly as if he were keeping the girl near him on purpose. Instead, without any sign of embarrassment or malice, he reached down and joined the elder Darcsen in peeling her away from his knee. It took a little bit, but soon she was stuck to a leg of her own race. The elder Darcsen couldn't resist in the show of slight annoyance, but still warmly guided both of them away from the scene, hugging her close as he walked in a strangely inhibited gait away from, as he had apparently whispered, "the good man".

That was a good sign.

Unfortunately, the younger Darcsen's expression was still dangerous. Lieutenant Karst took the first step in conversation. "I am sorry for your loss, sir." He bowed his head. "We came as soon as we heard the shooting." He glossed over the fact that they had been searching for civilization in the first place, but it was hardly as if that were necessary for the Darcsen to know at the time.

"You're an Imp." The voice was flat, speaking volumes about the anger he was restraining. The fencepost drifted closer to Lieutenant Karst's neck, attempting to intimidate him as a blade would.

The officer sighed. He really hadn't expected his disguise to last any longer than seconds. Instead, he played that card on purpose, pushing for a change of view. "An Imp with considerably more open-mindedness than the Gallians. Look at your home and tell me you agree."

Even knowing that an Imperial stood in front of him, representing forced labor in camps and open persecution further east, the young Darcsen couldn't resist the command in the man's voice, and cast his gaze upon the dead Gallian. "She was protecting us," he offered uncertainly.

This statement was almost enough to make even the Lieutenant put his head into his hands and weep for the idiocy of prejudice. Said Gallian woman was in the process of being kicked by a vindictive little girl, the older man watching over her, not joining in but looking as though he wanted to. The mother's body had already been covered with a sheet, a white shroud that was quickly staining red. "You know as I do that that is simply not true. You owe us our lives."

With a growl, the Darcsen refuted as best he could. "We could protect ourselves."

"With a fencepost."

Realizing that the need for a weapon was past, and that it was doing little more than make him look silly, the Darcsen cast aside the wooden post and squared himself against the Imperial. "Fine, you ride in here like a Valkyrur to save the day from the greedy Darcsen." His voice dripped with sarcasm, referencing the ages old tale, one that was more often than not a source for the anti-Darcsen prejudice. "But that doesn't explain why an Imp would want to do so in the first place. Shouldn't you be running away?" He took a cocky step forward, getting into the Lieutenant's space in blatant superiority. "I heard the guns on the Marberry shore stop. The Gallian army has come to kick you out of our homeland."

"Actually, the militia, but true, I lost most of my unit on Marberry." The flat statement took the Darcsen by surprise, and he reeled backwards. The other two men, watching the confrontation, were affected as well. They raised their own objects threateningly. This man had fought against their saviors!

The Darcsen waved his hands, convincing them to lower their weapons instead. His face was now one of sympathy and yet confusion. Slowly, he offered a hand. "Charles, the spokesman of this village, Lia." The gesture was one to placate, as he fully realized the implications of the Imperial's presence. By all accounts, he should have been on the run before the Gallian army caught them. Indeed, Charles should have taken his fencepost and smashed his enemy's skull apart. But the obvious move of charity, to run in and protect _Darcsens_, of all people, was too significant to ignore.

The Lieutenant smiled inwardly, although he wore nothing more than an expression of weariness and sadness, and took the hand. "Lieutenant Karst, leader of Unit 29-4. Walk with me. We have much to talk about."

And so the leaders of both Lia and Unit 29-4 discussed the attack, going through the streets to observe the damage. The two Imperials had been fast to arrive on the scene; in all, there were only a few dead, although a much greater number, perhaps some twenty, were injured in some manner. Lieutenant Karst offered his reasoning for the assault, that anti-Darcsen individuals were using the opportunity while the area was still confused and under neither Imperial nor Gallian control to follow up on their beliefs. For the use of Imperial weapons, Charles was able to offer his own idea, that they could not use the registered Gallian arms as they would most certainly be traced in the end back to their users.

They found themselves in agreement at every idea, and it wasn't long before they were fast friends. One had fought for the other, and now the other was prepared to return the favor in any way possible.

Lieutenant Karst smiled inside again. He had Lia's support.

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Meanwhile, Celes had won his own battle. Words speak louder than actions, and the sight of him bodily supporting a freshly treated, stitched, and bandaged man with what had been a fatal stomach wound as they walked out of an alleyway was enough to have the Darcsen populace scrambling to help him, regardless of whatever apprehension they felt at his one-eyed appearance, his hair so close to Darcsen blue-black and yet not quite.

Unable to properly work on the run, the former medical student had promptly turned himself into a current head surgeon, and worked the part to the full extent of his ability. The town square had been converted into a field hospital, going so far as to throw up cloth canopies to shield both the yet to be treated and recovering patients from the sun.

The village had no doctor of their own with the knowledge to treat wounds such as these – war wounds – but Celes was able to take that gap. He may have never gotten his diploma, but it hardly mattered, as he had had everything but the headmaster's approval.

His face was an interesting sight; with a surgical mask over his mouth and a band of gauze over his brow, only a single eye could be seen from his entire face. But what an observant eye it was, the source of input for those clever hands to work their own little magic.

Brusque, barked requests for tools and supplies were all that streamed forth from behind the cloth, as he practically danced around his borrowed operating table, his own tools and supplies augmented by those dug out of Lia's own facilities. His assistants did their best to keep up, handing him everything from alcohol pads to forceps, from ragnaid to bandages, from medical needles to painkillers, as he held back his weariness from combat with the looming problem of saving lives. It was hard to believe that so shortly before, he had wanted to do little more than end them.

The catharsis was welcomed. Celes hadn't felt this good for years.

His eye didn't actually see skin, blood, organs, or bones. He saw a diagram of a body, with glaring red arrows pointing towards what was wrong. His intuition supplied a diagnosis within moments of seeing his patient, and years of schooling formed step-by-step paths of action that he took as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Painkillers to calm the injured, complete anesthesia if the wounds were serious. A meticulously modified combat knife turned scalpal to open, forceps to remove and rearrange in preparation for healing. Sutures to seal, bandages to protect. Ragnaid if needed, especially in an implanted form – that was a surprise to most, who had never seen the procedure before. A small amount of inactivated ragnaid, perhaps the size of a small ball bearing or maybe a peanut, was embedded into damaged tissue before the wounds were sealed. The body's heat and metabolism would slowly activate the material bit by bit, and by the time the tissue healed enough to reject the matter, it would be all used up, broken down harmlessly. It was a recently developed idea, one that had worked marvelously without side effects – and in the eyes of the inhabitants of Lia, it elevated him to a godlike status.

Not that he noticed. He was too busy working.

Some were lost causes from the end, and all he could apply was a cocktail of painkillers – not ragnaid, for that was needed elsewhere, and the temporary curative effect would do nothing more than extend the person's pain. But not a single patient that he thought was even remotely savable escaped him into the realm of the afterlife.

It was when the last seriously injured patient had been stabilized, three shots that fortunately had clustered into a single lung of a young worker instead of spreading the damage, that they heard the incoming tank.

With shouts, the men of Lia scrambled to arms – many of the stolen Imperial arms had been abandoned, and now they wielded them personally. The wounded were hurried off into homes as quickly as possible, but carefully as Celes shouted out with frustration to avoid ruining his handiwork.

Lieutenant Karst brusquely stopped Charles with a swung arm from running to Lia's edge, with nothing more than a half-empty automatic rifle to confront a tank. "As admirable as your bravery is, stopped by seven sixty-two a tank is not," he said calmly. Letting the young spokesman see his own incredulous expression in the reflection of his glasses, he turned away and produced his binoculars, deciding on just what was coming.

"Them again." The racists had gotten a tank, apparently, and they were charging it full speed towards Lia. Inwardly, he felt a sense of disappointment – he recognized that tank as the same one that had made such a mess of his unit at Marberry, unique, like no tank in the Imperial files. Lowering them, he began connecting the dots. That one Gallian militiawoman he had talked to had been fighting alongside this tank…

With a sigh, he regretted having to kill her squadmates, but he couldn't very well let them run rampant and kill them all. He barked out orders, to get away from a direct confrontation but to hide once more, to try and lure the tank close in where they could swarm over it and render its armored superiority moot.

And the townspeople followed, sliding back in cellars, ducking into alleyways and behind walls. One even saw fit to hunker in the recently cleaned fountain. They were truly his. All he had to do was pull through here, and Lia would find a way for his remaining men to escape guaranteed.

Soon, they were crouched in waiting, tensing as the massive and yet sleek vehicle rolled past the fence and between the first houses, waiting for the Lieutenant's signal.

The tank rolled to a halt in front of the improvised medical facility, blocked from further progress. The signs of treatment were obvious, and confusing, just as Lieutenant Karst had hoped. He waited, judging if this was the time, if the tank was not going to try and barrel through the equipment, measuring distances from the hiding places to the tank's hull.

And he gave the order, a sharp bark that reached every fighter ready.

"Go!"

Like a sharp sudden jolt of lightning, Celes bolted from underneath a shroud, where he had posed as a corpse. Crossing the ten or so feet that separated him from the tread, he dodged around to clamber on the lower rear of the tank, dodging the radiator that emanated a fantastic amount of heat – truly, the tank had rushed to the battle as soon as it could. Knife in one hand, carbine clasped in the other, he hammered the next few steps to the turret, jumping on top of it, preparing to damage anything he could reach. He had to distract the tank before it saw the rest of his rushing compatriots.

The enemy did him a favor though, and opened the hatch for him.

Cursing with surprise and frustration - he hadn't expected to have to face off against anyone in person! - the corporal flipped the knife in his hand into a forward grip, skulking closer in preparation for a killing lunge, a lunge that he sincerely hoped he would not have to make.. How he wished he had a grenade! Wedged into the radiator, it would make this business of antitank combat much more palatable. Now they had to deal with the crewmen themselves, and that meant possibly having to kill them. Swallowing his disgust, he prepared to make the strike anyways. It was that or let everyone else die.

But what happened next surprised everyone.

A Gallian lieutenant, as obvious by the cap – _there hadn't been a lieutenant in the racist detachment_ – rose out of the hatch instead, staring at the pointed end of the blade, hardly expecting such a turn of events.

More importantly, he was the same man that the two Imperials had encountered in the Kloden Wildwood, the same man who had honored Fritz's death, the "friend" of the Lieutenant.

Even more importantly, he cradled an unconscious Darcsen girl in his arms.

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**Long chapter is long! I didn't have much to do today, and I'm already working on the next blurb. I hope this made up for my lack of relative speed.**

**In other news, I'm wondering if I couldn't take a spin on assigning Celes the role of the growling, masked Imperial soldier in the beginning of Chapter 2, where Isara and Martha are staring down the barrels of two Imperial guns before Welkin comes in with a fencepost. The dialogue there is on the surface plain insulting – but more I read it, the more it could be read as a double entendre. Not that kind of double entendre, you pervert.**

**In other other news, I've noticed the ability to insert an actual formatted line on the website instead of this line of asterisks I've been using. Can someone tell me how to do that? Thanks in advance, mate.**

**In other other other news, when I get five (or more!) reviews from here (23), I'll post a character profile for Celes like many others have done with their own OCs. When I get ten, I'll post Lieutenant Karst's. (Oh gods, it's going to look so retarded…) A few potentials will probably be made up, though, to accommodate for the unique Imperial side. **

**Give me your ideas, reviews, complaints, compliments, notices of typos, anything! An attention-whore is me!**


	12. Enter Edelweiss

**Cloner4000: Well... we'll see. :p**

**Dr. Evil: Not really the dark side of Gallia in particular, just showing that Darcsen hatred is all over Europa, not just exemplified in the Imperials.**

**skycomv2: Seven sixty-two is referring to the caliber of the ZM MP (I think?). Basically, he's saying that you can go against a tank if you want to, but a rifle won't work very well. :p**

**Mr Wang 330: Yay, people actually care about my characters! Well, Celes is definitely going to help Isara, and maybe more... (coughthesecondhalfofthisstorygenrecough) but yeah, exploring the other Darcsen haters? It's going to be pure awesome. And it doesn't look like I'll be using those lines – I work in Microsoft word mainly, and so I have to use these asterisks anyways.**

**DC20: By keeping the canon intact, I mean that the game's perspective (the only canon we really have, as the manga and anime seem to deviate slightly) is still 100% correct, except for what is here (obviously). The ending of the game is still going to be the same... except Isara and Celes are having their own adventure at the same time, unaffecting Squad 7's war, but don't fear – I'll shoot them back in after the epilogue of the game, which should be pretty interesting. :D**

**If you think that my constant use of "Lieutenant Karst" as opposed to just Karst is stilted, you're absolutely correct. He exudes such authority and circumstance that it is impossible to refer to him without his military title. :p**

**And so, just what happens after Celes bumps into Squad 7 for the first time? There's writing underneath this for a reason.**

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Celes's knifetip drooped slightly as he looked at her. Her face was tall, the cheekbones higher than most. The dark hair that was a primary Darcsen trait curved gracefully down to below her chin, and her expression was calm and serene. For a moment, he gaped, forgetting himself.

Then he noticed her gray pallor, the sheen of cold sweat on her skin, and looked at the rest of what he could see. The medical student's eyes widened in horror as he saw every symptom of a near fatal gunshot wound, and his gaze snapped to her shoulder. He groaned involuntarily at the cut away Darcsen patterned shawl and Gallian uniform around the wounded area, the bandages seeping through with red – whatever treatment she had received must have been ruined by the jostling of the vehicle. Following the blood's path, his senses crashed around him. The wound was so low, so close to the heart! How was she still alive?

And then she coughed, stirring a little. Her eyes flickered open for the slightest moment. They were clouded with pain and confusion, but it was impossible to not see the fire that burned behind them, a will to live beyond any other, determination without bounds. In the mere second that they were open, a blue lance ripped through Celes's soul.

Worse yet, he _knew_ that gaze.

And he froze, finding himself sucked into those orbs, memories of the first operation in Gallia rushing back to meet him.

_The Federation front was, for a time, at a stalemate. Tank production had begun in earnest by the western power, and now it was armor that crashed together every day on the battlefield. Massed infantry no longer had a role in this front, and Unit 29-4 was one of the many foot soldier units that found themselves transferred in preparation for the Gallian invasion._

_When they began the attack on the town of Bruhl, however, Lieutenant Karst had made one thing very clear._

"_I know our orders say to cause as much confusion and morale damage to the enemy as possible," he lectured, pacing back and forth in front of their parade lines. "That is our military's euphemism for 'everything is a target', including civilians." He grimaced. "Especially civilians."_

_The unit was too disciplined and overawed to make any physical signs of uneasiness, but hard lines began to form on their faces. Intentional civilian attack had never come up on the Federation front, where the enemy had rushed out to meet them in open battle, making sure that any nearby settlements of any kind, whether city or village, were completely evacuated long before the war even began. But this was a push into a territory that had only received the official declaration of war mere hours ago, and there was no way the entire east border of Gallia was evacuated yet._

"_You know me, men." The Lieutenant stopped, squaring himself against all of them. "I do not wish to gun down innocents. That is not honorable battle." He adjusted his glasses slightly, expression grim. "We are at war because of ragnite, a resource that makes nations enter the lands of others in greed. We fight because we must protect our own territory – our own people."_

"_Remember how I told you that behind every man you kill on the battle are a mother and father, a sister and brother, a spouse and children?" They eyed him cautiously, not sure whether they were supposed to respond, but he moved on with his speech. "Imagine if you killed them. You take away all basis of life for a soldier to continue fighting. But contrary to what we may believe, this does not defeat a soldier on the battlefield. This only strengthens him, turning him into a singleminded killing machine. He will fight until he has defeated his enemy. Death will not get in his way."_

_Their officer sighed, closing his speech. "Therefore, I will not be following our Imperial orders to a word." He smiled slightly, almost wistfully. "We've done this often enough in the past, always to complete our end objective. This time… I order you to not fire upon a single civilian." He nodded, accepting their skepticism that he was disregarding the exact intention of the orders. "We shall not, because if we do, we shall lose this war in the end, when Gallia's homeless fighters make it their goal to kill us all."_

_With that, he snapped a salute. "Now move out!"_

"_Sir!"_

Celes woke up on the stone road, looking up into the bright blue sky. He blinked. Just how long had he been out?

The answer – not very – came as a pair of Gallian boots flew over his face, landing on the other side of him. A second pair of boots – and a lovely view as these boots belonged to one of their skirted female soldiers – followed, and Celes unconsciously turned onto his side to follow it before mentally slapping himself for being so immature. What he saw brought back images of déjà vu, like it was the Kloden Wildwood all over again.

The same two Gallian militia, a lieutenant and red-scarfed sergeant, were locked in a cautious crouch, weaponless and confused.

Quickly, Celes snapped his view around the square. The armed men who had rushed out now stopped, confused at the sight. A young Darcsen man ran up to the two, ZM MP in hand but not in aggression, held by the stock. He waved his hands in pacification – the tension in the air slowly diffused as weapons were lowered.

It was then that the medical student decided it was best to get up before someone thought he had broken his neck.

**********************************************************************************

Welkin sighed with small relief as the plainly dressed assailant suddenly tumbled off of the turret out of sight, his single visible eye wide with shock. As soothing as the knowledge of not being at knifepoint was, his mind raced to figure out why such a greeting would be necessary in the first place.

His younger sister Isara cradled in his arms, he stepped out from the hatch and in two careful steps hopped off the side of the tank, focusing on the wounded woman and ground. He heard rather than saw Alicia follow him; with a smile, he admitted that she hadn't been the greatest of drivers, although the basic controls of steering wheel and accelerator were hardly impossible to learn.

The moment he looked up, though, he found himself staring the ends of Imperial rifles.

He froze, as did Alicia next to him. Was this town still under the Empire's control? Had he come here for naught? It didn't take long, though, to realize that the men were Darcsens, and that women and children were beginning to fill the streets to watch the scene. Slowly, he let himself relax. They weren't going to be shot, and last he knew Imperials didn't rub shoulders with Darcsens very often. The operation at Fouzen, where they had burned down an entire concentration camp – with the Darcsens still insde – had taught him that.

Any remaining fear for his life disappeared the moment another young Darcsen ran towards them, obviously not intent on harm. His waving arms proved a signal as the armed townspeople relaxed, but remained watching with interest.

"Charles, spokesman of Lia." Charles offered his free hand, the one not clutching an Imperial firearm, to Welkin. Welkin glanced awkwardly at it, arms full of younger sister. Realizing the awkward situation, and the more pressing matter, Charles moved the hand into an improvised salute of types. "How badly is she hurt?"

Welkin stumbled for words, but Alicia responded for him – faithful Alicia, always backing him up. "She's not in any danger right now…" she was able to say steadily, but when she continued, her voice broke. "…but she's going to die if we don't get a surgeon to operate on her in a day! Please, do you have one?"

The spokesman shook his head. "I'm afraid Lia is too small to have a doctor skilled in surge –"

"Then where can we find one?" Welkin interrupted.

"There isn't one anywhere near here, I'm afraid." Charles paused, confused. "Doesn't your military have its own doctors?"

Angrily, the Gallian lieutenant shook his head. "The regulars are late. We militia have our medics, but no one who can do this."

"Please, sir, there must be someone who can save her!" Alicia was almost begging – groveling.

Charles looked over her shoulder for a moment, distracted by the disguised Imperial who had treated so many of Lia's people. The man stood up again, slung his carbine, and attempted to sheath his knife before realizing he didn't have one. Flustered, he was only able to keep the tip low as he looked left and right, embarrassed at the fall.

The spokesman felt a smile slowly break out on his face. "Right behind you."

**********************************************************************************

As he busied around the operating table, Celes did his best to hide his face. "It's not as if they'd recognize you, anyways," he muttered to himself.

Every time they had seen each other – this Welkin Gunther in the Kloden Wildwood, this Alicia Melchiott both there and on the Marberry shore – Celes had been wearing his helmet with a full faceshield. There was no way that Welkin could recognize him, especially out of his armor, and the same for Alicia. The only possible distinguishing feature he had would have been his cloth eyeband, and he doubted that either of them would have noticed such a small feature, especially behind the faceshield.

Setting out his set of blades on a fresh sterile field, provided by a small capsule of slow release ragnaid on the tray, he stopped to take another look at the Darcsen girl – Isara, he corrected himself – that was to be his patient.

He had cleansed all of the foreign material – cutting away her clothes and shawl – above the waist, and formed a tent of sterile paper above the sutured wound. As awkward as it might have been under different circumstances, for now it was a matter of life or death, and the Gallians who sat watching nervously in the corner said not a word when he had sliced through the jacket's seams.

They had moved the equipment into the calm basement of Charles's humble cottage as quickly as they could, brusquely introducing themselves but not pausing for anything else. Celes had offered his real name – there had been no reason to lie, after all – but Lieutenant Karst had decided against it. In truth, the Lieutenant had not come out to help at all.

It was probably the smart move. Unlike Celes, the commanding officer had nothing to hide his face when he had talked with Welkin, and the moment the Gallians saw his proudly Imperial features, they would undoubtedly make the connections immediately. No, it was best if he stayed out of this situation for now.

The medical student looked up and around. They had set up in here as opposed to the same operating theater he had used outdoors, as the open surgery needed was much more difficult than any quick and dirty treating of wounds he had been doing before. Ragnaid capsules hung off of the rough planked ceiling, hopefully widening the sterile field into the entire room, as did a set of lamps, lighting the makeshift operating theater as bright they possibly could. It wasn't the best – nowhere near as good as a dedicated hospital – but in these circumstances, it was better than any tent. He found his gaze wandering back to Isara, and gulped. His professional demeanor wavered a bit;she looked almost as if she were just sleeping, and this impression, along with her naked torso, led to thoughts that he quashed immediately. It was hardly the time for such ideas.

He coughed slightly. "I'm going to need absolute concentration, Welkin – Alicia." He bowed slightly to each of them, still doing his best to hide from them, visions of her killing on Marberry still fresh in his head. For a moment, he thought he was almost going to collapse as he saw the beaches once more, the jumbled limbs of the other men in his unit all that remained after the shell from that tank, the other members of his unit twisting in death as Alicia picked them off, but he instead swung his gaze to Isara, who lay so close to death, and felt himself calm in a reflection of her own appearance.

Welkin stood up and looked as though he wanted to do nothing more than protest, but Alicia gently put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. Privately, Celes wondered if the Gallian military had disciplinary measures against that sort of thing – from the meaningful glance that he watched them exchange, it was clear enough that they shared more than a professional relationship. The scarfed girl nodded back, and carefully but firmly walked Welkin out of the basement, closing the door behind him.

Celes sighed with a small amount of relief, and turned back to the operating table. He snatched up a mask, apron, and gloves from the main sterile field, meticulously donning each object from the ragnaid-cleansed tray. There could be no mistakes with this procedure, which was why he wasn't even risking assistants. The job was one of finesse as opposed to speed, anyways. A bullet that close to the heart would be a huge challenge for any doctor – but he planned on success. More than her life rode on his knife, more than the trust of the town, of the Gallian officers, more than even the safety of his unit in the end.

He let his gaze linger back on her face, taking in the peaceful visage. If he didn't act, that expression would become permanent.

"Don't die on me now, Isara," he muttered as he drew the rolling tray slightly closer in preparation. "I still haven't apologized for Bruhl yet."

The sedative syringe slid smoothly into her arm. He had begun.

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**I just realized that Celes's eyeband is like Kakashi's from Naruto. Yay for accidental coincidences. **

**Also, do you smell IsaraxOC?... because I do. I mean, yeah, the second half of the genre gives it all away.**

**I'm getting the feeling that this chapter's pace is way too fast, but I'm really impatient to get Isara conscious again. She's supposed to be a main character, and I'm almost three chapters in!**

**And so, our younger Imperial begins the operation of his life! But just what is the Lieutenant busy doing? Find out tomorrow... but only if you leave enough reviews. :3**

**Oh, wait, the profile!**

**Keep in mind that this will probably change a bit as the story goes on. This is the profile as of here in the story...**

**Celestyn Faas Jacelern**

**Shocktrooper**

**Potentials:**

**Darcsen Bond – Being near Darcsens boosts defense.**

**Ultimate First Aid – Healing of Ragnaid greatly boosted permanently. (NEW)**

**Humanitarian – Cannot take another action after attacking.**

**Double Action – Set chance of taking 2 actions consecutively. **

**Likes: Lieutenant Karst**

**Now that we're done here, it's up to you to review! If I get four more reviews (from 29) then Lieutenant Karst's own profile will come up. And boy howdy, will it look like a Marty Stu...**

**But more importantly, reviewing is motivation for me to keep on writing. Otherwise, I've little reason to work for you ungrateful people. See that button down there. CLICK IT. CLICK IT NOW.**


	13. Two Lieutenants

**Awww, I didn't get up to 33 reviews! Sad panda is me, but that just means that I get to reveal more about Lieutenant Karst in this chapter for the profile.**

**Mr Wang 330: Get your head out of the gutter. There shall be no lemons today… well, today at any rate. :p In any case, Isara's about to be awake! YES!**

**DC20: Unfortunately, it'll take me a while before I can get to after the epilogue of the game, because right now I'm only halfway through the game's time, and Isara and Celes still need to have their adventures while the war is still going on.**

**Rotten-Kraut: Once again… there shall be no lemons… today.**

**Although maybe I'll say that if there are enough reviews, I'll make one when I get there. :O**

**More seriously, now our favorite two Lieutenants get to have a little chat, and more. Not that kind of more. STOP THE CITRUS.**

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It was with no small amount of agitation that Welkin paced, back and forth, in the upper room of Charles's cottage. It had been mere minutes, but it felt like days.

Alicia watched him tiredly. She rested in a rough wooden chair, trying to exude some measure of calm, but inside she wanted to join him, to get themselves worked into a frenzy, to walk down those stairs, crash through the door, and demand just what was taking so long.

But she knew that such surgery didn't take mere seconds to complete – Fina herself had taken hours to merely stabilize Isara, and they had waited patiently enough for her. Perhaps it was just the fact that this time, Welkin's sister was in the hands of a relative stranger.

She quickly recalled the first - and only - time that Welkin had snapped. When Welkin approached the stairs, a furious tirade had blasted through at him.

"GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR OR ELSE I'LL EVISCERATE YOU WITH THE BLADE IN MY HAND I SWEAR BY VALKYRUR I WILL GET AWAY GET AWAY –"

He had wisely abstained from forcing the issue, and fled like a scolded child. Alicia was centimeters away from hysterics after that.

The strained silence crawled by, second by second. The sun was beginning its journey west, the light of the room fading ever so slightly.

Activity at the cottage's front door; Charles returned from his final rounds in the hamlet, sighing with no small amount of relief as he carefully set down an Imperial rifle in a corner. He was followed by a man in a hooded jacket, who moved with Charles to take their own seats across from the two Gallians.

Welkin jumped at the noise, but was able to keep a handle on his expression as he greeted them with a nod. The hooded man bothered him – just why was that needed inside? – but before he could voice a question, Charles did himself.

"Welkin, Alicia, where's Isara?" He wrinkled his brow, wondering why they weren't staying with the patient they had so obviously worried over before.

"Celes told us he needed to concentrate," Alicia offered, but her own suspicions rose a bit.

"Did he? He hadn't seemed to have that problem earlier –"

"Jacelern always needs perfect working conditions when undergoing complex internal surgery, as opposed to quick treating of wounds. Don't worry, whoever he's working on, they're in good hands," the hooded man interrupted, speaking in a young but roughened voice, most likely one damaged by working in factory conditions.

Charles and the two Gallians nodded, then Welkin suddenly narrowed his eyes. "Wait, Charles, you said you didn't have a surgeon in your town, and then you suddenly did?"

The Darcsen man coughed, glancing awkwardly at the hooded man. Welkin didn't miss the significance of that look, and pressed on.

"I refuse to believe that you'd just come across one all of a sudden. It's too convenient." He tilted his head accusingly. "You wouldn't be hiding something, would you?"

Again the glance. The hooded man stirred a bit before answering for the beleagured Darcsen. "Everyone has secrets," he offered, a bit lamely.

"Welkin, please don't force the issue. Isara's lucky to have one in the first place, and you're questioning the validity of his work?" Alicia chided, not looking up from her lap.

The nature lover halted in his tracks, and stepped away. "I'm sorry," he said, smiling apologetically. "It's probably just nerves."

"Why the nerves?" the hooded man asked.

"You'd be nervous too if one of your family members was undergoing surgery."

"Younger sister?" He spoke with absolute confidence.

The accuracy of the guess set Welkin back on his heels yet again. "How'd you know?" he asked incredulously.

There was an awkward pause, as the hooded man shuffled awkwardly. "… lucky guess." It was an obvious lie.

Welkin thought again. "You… everyone saw that she was a Darcsen. And yet you think to say she's my sister?" He waved at his own face, clearly the result of Gallian blood. "Only a few people know that - and certainly not you."

The atmosphere of the room suddenly dropped below freezing. For almost a whole minute, they faced off, Charles and Alicia watching the two men eye gauge each other as best they could. Welkin was at a clear disadvantage, which he promptly made up for by darting the rifle in the corner.

A second later, the two bystanders had retreated into one corner of the room, while Welkin held the hooded man at gunpoint.

"Take the hood off," Welkin demanded.

The hooded man didn't hesitate to follow, peeling it down. Alicia gasped. He was much older than his voice had given his age to be, and he certainly had never worked in a factory. The man looked like Imperial aristocracy, especially with the set of expensive lenses perched on his hawkish nose. The appearance seemed familiar, and nagged at Welkin, but he dismissed it. There were more important things at stake right now.

The Imperial sighed. "I suppose there's no purpose in pretending anymore, is there?" he said, voice no longer attempting to sound like a Gallian's, instead proudly noble – and definitely Imperial. The man tilted his head. "You know, if you shoot me, Celes is too good of a boy to investigate in the middle of an operation. He'll cure your sister still, but you'll be little more than an animal to take advantage of that fact –"

Welkin snarled. "Don't insult nature." Despite the gravity of the situation, Alicia wanted to smack her head at Welkin's steadfast dedication to his pursuit.

The Imperial calmly steepled his fingers. "Perhaps I should be more accurate. Animals don't kill their own kind –"

"– that's right –"

"– except for mad dogs."

The Gallian lieutenant squared off against his Imperial counterpart, insulted more at the incorrect usage of the term than the insult. "You're wrong. _Rabid_ animals are much more likely to simply find a place to hide and die than hunt down other animals. And besides, even animals will fight to protect their family, and your presence is mostly certainly threatening."

Ceding the point, the Imperial raised his hands in pacification. "You're right there. By the way," he added, "the safety's on."

Welkin blinked. In consternation, he slid his thumb around the grip, failing to find anything but unwilling to let his eyes leave his enemy. "Alicia, can you see it?" he barked, panicking.

"It's near the magazine," the Imperial said evenly, before the former baker could respond.

Welkin found a lever there, paused. "Why'd you tell me?"

The Imperial shrugged a bit. "It hurts me to see someone fail to operate something improperly. Failure of mine."

Welkin checked the lever. It was upwards – off. He clicked it back down –

And suddenly found a handgun sticking into his left eyeball.

"Now that you're properly armed, and we're on even ground, do you mind admitting you're beaten?" The Imperial had slid into his standing position faster than even he could see, dodging past the danger zone after the barrel ended and moving too close for him to possibly make a shot. Welkin could do nothing more than gape at first, but then he smiled, knowing that he still had a trump.

He dropped the rifle just as Alicia jumped for it. It was a flawless catch, and the rifle jabbed into the Imperial's stomach. Fearing for Welkin's life – she couldn't let him get hurt! – she pulled the trigger immediately.

Nothing happened.

Moments later, they were both down, clutching at their skulls in pain from two quick pistol-whips - the handgun was definitely of superior make, as most pistols would have shattered from such harsh treatment. Charles pressed himself against the corner in fear. He hadn't wanted this - he had only brought Lieutenant Karst because the man had suddenly shown up and asked. And now he was about to have the Gallian army breathing down his back, asking why two of their officers had been murdered in his house…

He watched without comprehension as the Lieutenant scooped up the rifle with a single hand, somehow holding it and separating the magazine without dropping either part. "Empty, like I thought. Your balance when you picked up the rifle was off." Dropping both onto the floor, he calmly sat back down again, as if nothing had happened.

Alicia groaned from her position on the floor, and pawed at her equipment – found the hilt of her knife, hiding the movement underneath her body.

"ISARA!" she screamed as she bounced back off the floor again, knife lunging forward. Welkin mirrored her move exactly, his own blade streaking down from an overhand stab.

Lieutenant Karst began a sigh as he spun to the other side of the seat. Pushing it forward in front of Alicia, stopping her in a stumbling crash, he intercepted Welkin's angry stab with a block on the inside of his forearm, knocking his handgun against his wrist, disarming the Gallian who howled in pain. "Not like I even broke anything," he thought to himself as he pushed – not punched or struck, but gently shoved – him away with his other hand, turning to the woman who had just recovered from the obstruction. The knife, still falling, dropped straight into the officer's palm, and streaked forward to meet Alicia's eye.

It stopped just where he wanted it, millimeters away from her pupil, where she froze, unable to think of anything but her upcoming death. He finished the sigh.

When Welkin finally recovered, he froze as well, unwilling to risk the life of his subordinate. "That took you way too long," Lieutenant Karst thought.

The four people stood their positions for a full minute, when the Lieutenant suddenly retracted his weapons, dropping both weapons to his side. With a gentle push, like a parent with a child, he guided Alicia back to Welkin's side. They crouched there, staring into the gun barrel, waiting to die.

Their captor had no such intentions. He flipped both weapons in his hands – including his own handgun – presenting the hilts to the two Gallians. They hesitated, fearing a trick.

"Go on, I couldn't kill either of you if I wanted to."

Slowly, each reached over, Welkin reclaiming his blade, Alicia the gun – which she turned on the Imperial the moment she was out of arm's reach.

"Why?" Alicia strained out.

Lieutenant Karst could only smile, and take his seat again, serene in the face of death. "If I kill you, the Gallian army will know we're here. It is in my best interests that you both live to deliver the opposite message."

"As if we would... and you didn't have to give us your weapon…" Welkin was confused, an often enough occurrence, but never had he expected this.

"Holding a weapon undermines my credibility, which is the only weapon I can use if I want to survive in the end."

It was truth; had he been the one holding the gun, it was doubtful any of them could have concentrated on anything except death, negotiating only to buy time instead of the diplomacy that this strange Imperial was obviously focused on establishing.

Charles took the opportunity to slide along the wall to the Gallian's side. They let him, thinking that no Darcsen would ally with an Imperial for any reason.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Lieutenant Karst, leader of Unit 29-4. We met once in the Kloden."

Welkin gaped. He seemed to be doing that lot these days. Carefully, he offered his own name. "Lieutenant Welkin Gunther, Squad 7 of the Gallian militia."

Moments later, the Imperial Lieutenant had them hanging on his every word as he laid down his situation.

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**And so, the beans are spilled! What does this mean? How will our couple-but-still-in-denial react to such news? And more importantly, just what will Isara make of the situation when she regains consciousness?**

**You'll never know if I don't get my gasoline – ragnoline? – in the form of your responses and words, or in the simplified term, reviews. Also, I'm still waiting on **_**someone**_** to give me that LONG review. Not naming any names… Xanthera. :D But you should take up his example, and leave a nice long response with all your honest opinions, questions, suggestions, and complaints. Did I have a continuity break? A typo? A strangely worded sentence? "It's" instead of "its"? Anything is worth your time, as it improves the quality of the writing for your later reading. So jump to, readers, and REVIEW!**


	14. Operation Operation

**Kekeke, it seemed that being pushy got results. Results that were borderline defensive. :D**

**A kind of hilarious dance. People say "pairings!", I say "NO LEMONS", and then people are tilting away, apologizing profusely. Hilarious.**

**Mr Wang 330: Hmmm. Squad 7 will know something, but if I want to keep a lid on canon, I can't let them know EVERYTHING. Events have to tick so that canon progresses as normal. And Celes and Isara? A "bittersweet" relationship? … more like "wrench-to-skull" relationship for a while, the way I'm seeing it right now.**

**skycomv2: Congratulations, you're a long reviewer, and should be treated to cookies and godly mana every day! … okay, a bit over the top, but I am very welcome. I haven't gotten the impression of being pushy at all – discussion relies on everyone presenting their points, and it helps when those points aren't obscured with attempts at being dignified. Yay for action being easy (no x shot y combat for me!) and I'm staying within expected results. Oops – the –thoughts- that you're mentioning… aren't supposed to be thoughts. They're interjections, a guiding hand of how the narration is being played out. As in, you know how an often unrelated or random idea will pop into your head upon seeing something? –interjection- is supposed to guide that along, telling you what you're supposed to be thinking, just like the choruses in ancient Greek dramas (or whatever you call them). Geek reference is geeky.**

**Rotten-Kraut: I thought about stalling LIEUTENANT Karst's introduction (HE IS ALWAYS MENTIONED WITH LIEUTENANT :O) but in the end, it wouldn't change anything. Also, it's probably more realistic that the revelations are all occurring at different times. It may be longer, and more awkward to read, but truthfully, a scene in which Celes and Lieutenant Karst have to square off against Charles, Welkin, and Alicia all at once would seem forced to me. So Charles finds out about the Imperials first, but Celes is clueless. Then Welkin and Alicia find out about the Imperials, but Celes is still clueless. Now, Celes is going to have to walk into a room that knows all about him… and his attempts at subterfuge are going to be humorously bad. :D**

**Exum: The main reason is that my job is at a slow point right now, my supervisor haring off somewhere else, and because she's the only one who can start new experiments (I work in a laboratory, soisoisoi) all I can do is maintain the current ones. There aren't even any that need to be finished, so these weeks have been a real boost to writing. I'll have to go to a medical workshop for practically a month on June 28, 2009, though, so that'll be a real cut in my work. Still, I'll do my best! Expect modest updates. I'm trying to get the story to a less crucial stage (post-separation of Celes and Isara from established canon to begin a new arc) before then, so that's also why I'm writing a lot right now.**

**Wow, long notes are long. I think I covered everything I needed to say about this blurb in my responses, so if you've been skipping over them, read them.**

**And I most graciously thank all of my dedicated reviewers. If you know ANYONE who has played Valkyria Chronicles, link them here. I need more readers. This is not a shameless plug. :3**

**And now, Celes is going to work on Isara… not that way. For the love of Valkyrur, half of these blurb summaries sound absolutely perverted.**

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Sedate.

Sterilize.

Cut.

Arrange.

Solve.

Cure.

Seal.

Such were the steps that Celes took. After injecting Isara to keep her still while he operated, he had quickly slashed away the bandages, which, he noted, were wrapped competently and perfectly. The previous caretaker had been a good one, by emergency standards.

Upon viewing the ghastly wound underneath the protective coverings, steady hands bathed the wound in the glow of adjusted ragnaid, meant only as an antibiotic. Alcohol wipes finished the job, while the tent of paper kept the entire area clean of dust. Thinking, he refrained from reopening the wound immediately – digging out a long hollow rod no thicker than a pencil, loading it with granulated ragnaid, making sure the toggle was where he thought it was. Only then did he pick up his blades.

Sutures flew away, although he noted with frustration that the unneeded of raw ragnaid had caused the layers of skin to half-heal together already. "Ragnaid is not a cure-all," he said to himself as he carefully separated the two sides of the previous incision with a tiny blade.

What he saw underneath was a ghastly sight. The tissue had been bruised to the point of practical destruction, and signs of previous bleeding into the chest cavity were there. The liberal application of ragnaid had, while stopping the immediate bleeding, caused the internal muscle to heal all wrong. Worse, it had pushed over the bullet that was supposedly still in her chest and near her heart, most likely jeopardizing her condition further.

She hadn't had a day. She had minutes when they'd given her to him.

He centered himself again – no mean feat when his mind was already in razor sharp focus – and began the race. Using forceps, his array of blades, and probes, he deliberately wounded the tissue again, hacking it into as few pieces as he could, carefully moving it aside. The tissue bled freely, but there was nothing he could do about that. The bleeding was the least of her worries for now, anyways. If the bullet reached her heart, it wouldn't matter.

"Got you." A squashed hunk of metal suddenly rose out of the muscle. Irritation rose in him again – the ragnaid had let the muscle clench around the bullet, hard, and this close to the heart, the muscle pulsed with her heartbeat. Had the ragnaid not been used, he could have easily plucked it out with the forceps, but now he'd have to use blades = and there was no way he could cut it out without accidentally stabbing too deep into the moving flesh, no matter how quick he thought he was with his hands.

The only solution was to stop the heartbeat and finish as fast as he possibly could. Numbers and conjectures flew in a spiral within his head, and he carefully measured and injected a second dose of sedative - straight to the heart. This was dangerous; if he got the hastily estimated dosage wrong – he hadn't been able to even weigh her, much less take a surface area measure – it either would cost him precious minutes that he didn't have with the bleeding if he underestimated, but too much and it would poison the tissue, killing it. No amount of ragnaid could fix that.

As expected, though, his intuition was perfect.

Celes bared his teeth in a feral grin of satisfaction underneath the mask, as the exposed tissue slowed to stop without annihilating the tissue. It took mere seconds to excise the bullet and drop it onto a tray, before arranging the tissue in a facsimile of the natural form they were supposed to be in.

Carefully, the medical student inserted a drain, removing the dead blood that had pooled earlier. It would putrefy and cause infections otherwise, but the rate of bleeding meant that even if he did, before he could wrap up the operation, she would have bled enough to warrant draining again. And so the cycle would continue until she simply ran out of blood and died.

Celes had the trump.

Snatching up the ragnaid-rod he had prepared earlier, he applied its business end to the damage that was not immediately around the drain. Thumbing the switch on the other, the apparatus activated the ragnaid only at the very tip, letting the grains higher up in the instrument fall down to replace it. Like a magic wand of healing, the meticulously arranged tissues flew together and sealed wherever it went in a relatively flawless manner. They wouldn't be completely attached, so she'd need to avoid moving for a while, but that was a small price to pay. It was certainly better than being down for weeks, possibly months, and perhaps not healing correctly anyways.

With the bleeding almost completely stopped, Celes drained away the new fluids, removed the pipe, and reapplied to the wand to the tiny slit. It knit together in an instant.

The rest of his work was mere cleanup, albeit cleanup against a second clock, that of her stopped heart. But that was no problem, as he rearranged the upper layers and sewed them back together, before blasting it with the ragnaid wand once more. Once again, it wasn't a perfect heal, but ragnaid couldn't do everything. She'd scar, but it would be nothing like if it was allowed to heal naturally.

He smiled ironically, thinking of how ragnaid alternately was too much or little depending on the situation. Although he felt hypocritical, the knowledge that his ragnaid wand – his own invention, no less, not yet released to the Empire – had functioned so well filled him with satisfaction, shaking off any bad feelings.

However, he immediately shook off the good feelings as well. He wasn't done yet.

To finish the most crucial point of the procedure, he inserted a syringe into her thigh, extracting non-sedated blood to put back around the heart for a wakeup call –

"VALKYRUR," he stated aloud. It was not a curse, but a fact. The syringe resisted his efforts to draw it up - she was so low, drawing blood was impossible.

Releasing the syringe pressure and removing it, he checked the fluids he had drained earlier – not much, not even a cup from what he estimated the four to five quarts she should have had. She must have bled much more than she should have when she was first injured - and her previous caretaker certainly hadn't had the supplies for a blood transfusion from the results in front of him.

Mind racing to solve this new problem, Celes reviewed his options. There was really only one with the minutes – quickly approaching seconds – that he had. Not only did he have to start up the heart again, he had to get enough blood into her for her heart to pump in the first place. Sweat that he hadn't noticed soaked into his eyeband, which acted once again as a concentration blessing.

Unhesitatingly, he made his decision and took the option. He had type O blood, just one of the small factors that had him working as a medic in the first place. There was certainly no way to distinguish what type she was before she died; there wasn't even enough time for him to ask the people - Welkin and Alicia - who had brought her in.

An alcohol wipe, two incisions, and a piece of medical tubing later, the Imperial watched his own blood drain into Isara's body.

He didn't know how much he gave her, although he did know that he'd been competent enough to make sure the siphon could only go one way. The moment he started feeling remotely dizzy, though, he stopped. If he let himself go unconscious, and there was a complication, she would die while he danced around in the depths of his own mind – that wouldn't do.

Two quick adhesive bandages later, he checked the heart. With a grimace, he realized it hadn't started beating yet, and he couldn't massage the chest to circulate flow while she died, what with the damaged tissue underneath –

Ah. There it was.

And Celes began busying himself, checking all of the Darcsen girl's vital signs. He stayed like that for a few hours, measuring breath rate (slow while she worked off the dispersed sedative), pulse rate (slow for the same reason), movement of any kind (once again, not very much due to the chemical).

It was then that he decided to check Isara's other health signs while he was at it. Watching her face for signs of consciousness, he put a hand on her abdomen to palpate the internal organs - the kidneys, liver - for damage. If she had been that bloodless for as long as he thought she had been, they easily could have failed, and then nothing could save her.

Isara's eyes opened at the touch. After all his concentrated study on every example he'd been given during school hours – and after them – he had concluded that a patient regaining consciousness mere hours after such an operation was impossible.

Apparently not. Maybe the ragnaid wand had further side effects.

"Let go of me, you pervert," she croaked out.

Still dizzy from blood loss, it took every mindtrick Celes had to resist the urge to explode with laughter.

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**  
Lieutenant Karst, eh? Here's his profile:**

Lieutenant Karst

_Sniper_ (Oh yes.)

**Potentials**

Born Commander – Being first to take action boosts own abilities and those of nearby allies. (NEW)

Ultimate Melee Skills – All abilities boosted when close to enemies. (NEW)

Ultimate Accuracy – Firing accuracy greatly boosted permanently.

Concentration – Occasionally all shots hit a single point.

Full HP Recovery – Chance of fully recovering after attack.

Neutralize – Set chance of preventing counter attack.

**And the consensus is, don't mess with the Lieutenant. Ever. Unless you're Squad 7 and have both your tanks, as highlighted in Chapter 1.**

**Also, Celes is a pervert! This should be amusing to watch.**

**The next POV will be that of Isara's… finally. Took me long enough. Expect a wrench to the skull very, very soon.**

**You know, I just realized that Celes is only 17, Isara 16 (right?) so anyone crying "statutory rape" is absolutely correct… in America. (Bandit Keith!) However, anyone trying to sue me for that deserves to be shot.**

**This one's a bit shorter than I'd like (looking up medical procedures ate a LOT of time, I worked longer on this than any other blurb) but that makes a good enough cut-off point as any, with Isara's awakening. (A bit too deus ex machina?) Expect to see a loooooooooooooooooooong next blurb as Isara and Celes delve into their first actual conversation. Maybe.**

**If I get some reviews, that is. :3**

**This medical work is still shaky – if at any time you see a major medical blunder that is NOT workable through ragnaid (applied phlebotinum!) point it out IMMEDIATELY. Realism (as real as a world with ragnite gets) is something I want in great deal with this story. Note how I made the classic innocuous "shoulder shot" into something near fatal, as it should be.**

**For anyone who feels offended by my notes, go ahead and put a :3 face after everything I say. It'll usually make a LOT more sense.**

**And yes, I'm still waiting for some great reviews. Reader input is key! (insert cat face here)**

**(It just occurred to me that most of this blurb is omake. Oh, well. :p)**


	15. Chapter 4: Awakening

**Ominae: I'm flattered; but seeing as the Valkyria Chronicles fanbase is pretty small, that there aren't many stories about the Imperials understandable (unfortunately) simply because there aren't that many stories in the first place. Waaaaaaa. The fact that the whole thing is presented as a book (****On the Gallian Front****, quite original) lends the thing to fan fiction.**

**DC20: Well, first I wrote "god" as a curse, realized that they never referred to that, and decided to put in the closest equivalent. Oh, and I fixed some of the booboos. That's what you get when you shuffle around paragraphs and forget to rename subjects.**

**Rotten-Kraut and Exum: Wrenching imminent.**

**Cloner4000: Yeah, I'm worried at the scope I've set up for myself, but I'll do my best to see it through.**

**To everyone who raised an eyebrow at Concentration/Ultimate Accuracy/Sniper, while the canon game may have people with strict weaponry, this is "real" combat where people use whatever they get their hands on. I chose the class of "sniper" for Lieutenant Karst because he seemed to be a slower, deliberate, precise sort of person – but as of yet the only weapon he has actively used is a handgun, not counting the super crazy carbine shot.**

**And so, I wasted Friday and Saturday going through some free visual novels online. Look up "Narcissu", "True Remembrance", and "May Sky". They're all free, in English, and pretty good. Don't let them distract you from this story, though… like they did for me.**

**I'm sorry! *dodges incoming angry reader slaps***

**But now, we get to see what our favorite Darcsen is thinking about the situation…**

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Floating away in a haze of pain, a mist of grey, a miasma of unconsciousness. Time was measured in beats – and a foreign object gradually becoming more and more known within her chest.

She felt herself get picked up, the temporary relief of ragnaid before being rushed onto a table. Laid open for hours, before the cool kiss of ragnaid eased the burning once more. But the object remained, a hard spot creeping towards her center.

Instinctively, she knew that if it reached its destination, she would be gone forever. She wanted to say something, to protest her fate, to fight, but she couldn't bring herself to stir out of her limp state.

Picked up once more – the comforting smell of her brother – carefully guided up and down. The smell of metal and oil; comforting sounds of machinery. Fast, smooth, movement. The characterisitic hum of the Edelweiss, a pitch not heard in any other tank in Europa. She knew it well; she had been the one to tune it to those specifications.

Her only thought was that she had fixed the tread after all.

Up again in those concerned arms. She had to say something, struggled up through the depths of her agony. The hard spot was millimeters away now, her insides tensing up with every sluggish beat. She was going to die, without ever getting to say goodbye.

Every resource she had, every wish, every dream, for recognition, for the sight of friendly faces, for her Darcsen crusade, was thrown to the side just to accomplish her last goal.

And she opened her eyes. Her gaze found a person, crouching on top of metal. His head was level with a roof – ah, there was the cannon barrel. On the Edelweiss then.

She felt her eyes harden with resolve to say something, saw the strange man's eye – singular – widen. For a moment, a memory tickled in the recesses of her mind. Distracted, she turned to it.

But she in reaching for it, she lost her concentration. Her eyes closed, her mouth failed to say a word, and she plummeted into darkness again.

Darkness. The struggle of her heart. A sense of loss, that she would die in such an unmemorable fashion, bled dry and heart broken – in more ways than one. She reached for her dreams, to see humans walking side by side, everyone treated equally, no one denied their chances.

More activity, a prick in her arm. They fled from her. It was over. She was about to die.

Floating in darkness still. Well, this didn't seem too different than before. Somehow, she got the feeling that someone was busying around her, although why was beyond her. Maybe it was a coroner, or an undertaker, or something. That thought made her think, an action equivalent to a mixer in concrete – concrete that had had time to set. How could she know that if she was dead? Perhaps this was what happened after death. You were trapped in your body to rot, never to see the world again; and there was no other world to move on into.

Her heart stopped. In a detached manner, she waited. She was dead, then. Nothing to do about it expect see what happened.

More work. She thought her corpse was being touched. There was activity around her wound, anyways. But why would that matter? Wasn't it clear that she was in no condition to do anything, anymore, forever?

A feeling of warmth in the cold abyss. So this was the afterlife. It was certainly more comfortable than before. The late Isara waited patiently for when she could try and seize control of, well, whatever she could, since she was dead.

_Ba-bump._

Oh. A heartbeat. That was unexpected.

Another one. And then another. And then another. And then another.

Five in a row, then a dozen, then a score. There was a weight missing from her chest, and she noted that such enthusiastic beats were not stopped by a strange weight any longer. The hard spot was gone. Death had fled like a thief in the night.

Isara stopped counting, and started trying to wake up again.

She felt something – actually felt, not was simply aware of.. It was a slight buzz in a line, over her wounded shoulder. The Darcsen girl jumped upon that sensation, pulled on it like a drowning man would on a lifeline. She didn't know how long she clung to it; her heart beat hundreds of times, a tempo to which she heaved her consciousness along the cord.

That line on her body went to burning, and then all at once Isara was aware that her body was working once more, in stark contrast to the hours before.

Someone touched her. Unsurprising, seeing as her body had worked on earlier, at any rate. If she wasn't mistaken, it was her stomach. A strange material – rubber? – on her bare skin.

That fact got her attention. Bare skin?

Awareness continued to rush back in, and it suddenly became quite apparent that her torso was naked – and being felt by someone very intently. Of all the emotions she could have felt after just coming back to life, in stark contrast to relief and thankfulness, all she could feel was embarrassment and immediate anger.

Isara, no longer late, took in a deep breath. At least it was deep in comparison to the ones she had been taking, so small as to not notice. Her lips opened with the intention of voicing her feelings.

"Let go of me, you pervert."

No response, and the hand stayed on her. The voice didn't sound like it belonged to her. A feeling of weakness beckoned her to give up, to let this hand have its way with her.

Her right arm retorted, scrabbling down to her thigh. The touch of cold steel welcomed her fingers, fingers that felt like logs of wood for all the sensation she could discern. But it was enough for her reflexes, and they closed around the metal handle and swung blindly.

A foot of heavy-duty steel in the form of a wrench, meant to adjust and repair machinery, given to Isara by her beloved brother-by-adoption, screamed through the air like a comet with the goal of demolition.

And so it was that Celes, leaning over Isara's supine form with the intention of healing it, found the exact opposite happening to his skull.

THWACK. There was a satisfying connection, followed by the sound of a form collapsing onto the floor, but the movement exhausted her. She still had the presence of mind to slip the tool back into its slot on her skirt, her mechanical instincts refusing to let her drop it forgotten – but the clouds were coming back, but at least they were free of pain, free of death. Even without a doctor, she knew that the possibility of the endwas over, that she could rest easy knowing that she wouildn't slip away again.

Her goals in life suddenly were back at hand; ready to be seized when she awoke. Inwardly, she smiled.

And for a time, both the Imperial boy and the Darcsen girl floated in that realm of the unconscious together.

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**Wrench count: 1.**

**I'm not very good at unconsciousness scenes. A lot of the writing is purposefully obtuse – unfortunately, I guarantee that some obtuseness will definitely NOT be purposeful due to the amount of confusion it will generate. Mention it when you see it.**

**And so Isara is awake! Okay, not quite, but at least she's on the same level as consciousness as Celes. Wait a minute…**

**Oh well. They'll all be awake and happy next chapter, I promise!**

**But I'll kill them all off if I don't get reviews! Click that button down there and leave me your impressions! Lives are at stake!**


	16. Memories of Bruhl

**DC20: Yay for no problems! Meh, the profile's for fun anyways, so there's not too much to say, other than… use your imagination. (Colon three cat smile.) Sucks that you can't save it… Narcissu is really touching. But whatever you do, don't read it when you're feeling sad. You just might feel like committing suicide after reading it. But the whole story is really good – although the ending might have been a bit more definitive. It's still awesome, though.**

**skycomv2: Yeah, yeah, every one of your reviews says that my writing is good… because that's the truth. *dodges deflating slap* I was using the in-game encyclopedia entry on ragnaid – which is really bare, just that it's a "controlled disinfectant and restorative agent". As to the phlebotinum behind that, well, I'll step away from that for now. As for wrench to the head, I'm being VERY careful to moderate the usage of this. Isara is levelheaded and calm, yes, but she also has an iron will – and if she's semiconscious and feels that she's being assaulted, I believe she would respond in kind. She will not turn into a smashing tsundere, which is most certainly not IC… but expect the wrench to return.**

**Runty Grunty: I'm going to watch my usage of wrenching, so every time this count increases, something relatively important or dramatic has happened. I hope. And it feels good to know I pulled the "flow of consciousness" thing off.**

**Cloner4000: Yeah, I got carried away. You could have sent me a private message bomb or something, I dunno. Well, putting the wrench back had nothing to do with not being caught, just that it seems like the sort of rule that a mechanic would always follow (PUT YOUR TOOLS BACK). I'll look "disability girl" up… once I finish writing, that is.**

**Rotten-Kraut: Sorry about that, but I ran the clock to the last second because of all my reading. I'll wait and write myself out of Lia before diving into any new ones. And… o.0 . Flattering to have such a devoted reader.**

**15 DOCUMENT LIMIT MY ARSE. Seriously, that is annoying – now if I want to make edits, I'll have to shuffle them around? Super lame. Edits on previous chapters just got so much harder…**

**So now we return back to Isara, several hours later. Super important flashback ahead…**

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Consciousness returned gradually for Isara. There were happy feelings floating around her, although she didn't know exactly why. She thought she could see her hometown of Bruhl, before the Imperials had steamrolled over it in their push towards the capital, wide green meadows, lush foliage, but best of all the two Sister Mills towering above everything, almost like mothers in their appearance. Welkin might disagree and say that the wildlife was more beautiful, but she personally had found the mixture of utility and beauty in those mills to be the pinnacle of creation.

Of course, those mills had been one of the first victims of the attack, blown apart by artillery fire.

The light mist of sleep slowly faded away as she felt her ire rise, and she realized she was still on a hard table, still underneath concentrated light, and still naked from the waist up.

That was distressing. Couldn't someone have put at least a sheet over her?

Carefully, she opened her eyes – and then screwed them shut again. There was a bright lamp shining right onto her face. As silently as possible, she turned her head towards the sound of tinkling metal before looking once more.

A man – a young one – was kneeled in the corner of the smallish room, sifting through the contents of a bag on the floor. His clothes looked a bit strange, but she couldn't put a finger on why. After a few seconds, he pulled some object out – with annoyance, she realized her angle was too awkward to see exactly what it was – and turned, approaching her with it in hand, held in front of him like a weapon.

And with only one look at his determined face, the young features horribly mutated into an angry killing expression, she made sure that her eyes were closed again, as if still in sleep, as if all she had done was shift a bit. Her heart betrayed her apparent calm, racing with fear – and no small amount of anger.

Those eyes. One covered with a gauze band, its exposed mate a deep dark brown, like the depths of a huge pit. She knew those eyes all too well. They were her first and only exposure to an Imperial without the Edelweiss's armor in between, from the assault on Bruhl…

_Martha, the matronly woman who had served as nanny to both her and Welkin both before and after they both were orphaned, dropped a basket full of bread and went to her knees, clasping at her swelled midsection. "Ooh!" was all she said, as the food spilled all over the stone floor of the kitchen._

_Isara jumped from her packing. "Martha!" she cried, rushing down to her side. "What's happening!"_

"_The baby…" Martha had been due any day, but Isara had hoped they could evacuate Bruhl before it arrived. As it was, fate had its own agenda, and now Isara was torn between finishing the packing as fast as possible or helping out Martha and riding out the birth._

_A rifle shot stopped her from having to make a choice._

_Barging in through the brutally-unlocked door were two Imperials in full battle armor, although one had neglected to don the faceshield of his helmet. They quickly advanced forward, guns held ready towards the two of them._

_Isara had heard of the standard Imperial brutality, civilians on the Federation front being mown down without pause. Her breath and heart rates spiked in terror, as she did her best to ignore them, instead calling "Martha!" once more. The only response she got back from her was a pained groan, but the Imperials decided to respond as well._

"_What's her problem? She pregnant, or just fat?" sneered the one without a faceshield from behind an obviously overly-maintained mustache. Isara snapped her head towards him and his masked compatriot, resolving her fear into anger at this statement. The Imperials were perhaps going to have a little fun before killing them, as their conversation implied – she had to think of something before they got to that point._

"_Who cares?" rasped Mask. "Not gonna make any difference when she's dead." The voice was dangerous, full of veiled threats in addition to the spoken one._

_Now fully committed, Isara slowly stood up and squared herself against them, watching their guns rise to match her. "Stop this now," she declared, with as much authority as she could muster underneath the circumstances._

_Mustache relaxed a bit, lowering his rifle, turning to Mask and pointing. "See what she's wearing? Take a good look at that shawl." Isara was in a conservative work dress, but she had thrown her personally-patterned shawl over it in a move of individuality – she had always worn it, never trying to hide her heritage. "She's a Darcsen," the Mustache stated as if Mask were stupid, some sort of retard who hadn't ever heard of them before. Darcsens were Europa's oldest indigenous race, after all._

_Mask nodded a bit but didn't lower his guard as Mustache raised his weapon again. Isara stared him in the eye as he said his own piece. "Then that explains it," Mask said, as if explaining to a child as well. "I thought this place stunk. Now I know it does." She noted that one eye was covered in gauze, the other a brown approaching black, staring straight back at her with steel backing his gaze. "So, we got ourselves a fat one, and a stinky one," he continued mockingly. "Pee-eew, it's a regular pig farm in here." There was an edge of laughter in his voice now, but Isara felt none of the apparent humor._

_Her gaze shifted left; the Gallian rifle that she had just finished cleaning – and loading – was still leaned behind a box out of view. She made the decision._

_With only a shifted foot to telegraph the maneuver, she cartwheeled to it, snatched it up, and whipped it towards Mask – he was closer. She thought of a dozen different actions, but fearing Martha's fate if she simply shot, she spoke instead. "I will thank you to watch your tongue in this house," she snarled. Was there too much fear in her voice? She doubted it. All she felt now was determination and anger – especially anger. "You have to leave. NOW."_

_Mask seemed impressed, from the way his single pupil widened – but instead of backing off, he took a step forward. Isara scrambled to her own feet, shaken slightly by the show of confidence. "That's a big gun for such a little girl," Mask growled back. It was slightly overshadowed by the fact that he wasn't so much bigger than her, but the gun in his hands was enough of a threat. "Drop it."_

_She only shot him a look intended to kill. Despite only having a single eye to match her two, Mask let his own barely visible expression do the fighting. Out of the corner of her eye, Isara watched Mustache train his rifle on Martha, face almost bored, waiting, as if the end was a foregone conclusion. He took one step closer to her prone form, as if to kill her right then and there –_

_CRASH. "ISARA!" came Welkin's cry. He had burst through the same door that the two Imperials had rudely broken._

"_Huh?" Mustache his head, keeping his weapon trained on Martha. Isara started as she saw her brother's face, full of the same determination she knew that her face had had moments earlier. "Hold it right there!" the Imperial shouted.  
_

_Time crawled as Isara snapped her gaze back to Mask. Instead of combat focus, though, all she saw was resignation, defeat, and almost a little embarassment. With a last, almost sheepish look, slowly, oh so slowly, he broke the look to turn his own head towards Welkin. But his rifle was not longer threatening her, but raised ever so slightly, almost as if he didn't want to hurt her._

_Confusion went through her mind, questioning the charity. Mustache was turning his entire body, to get his rifle in line to shoot her Gallian brother. Why hadn't Mask shot, let his comrade delay Welkin and then handle Welkin with him? _

_It was then that Isara realized that Welkin had one of the fence poles from the yard in his hand. With a mighty swing, he brought it down into the side of Mask's head. He flew away with a choked cry and landed in a limp heap with a clatter of metal against stone. In a detached manner, Isara concluded that the impact probably broke his neck, or shattered his skull. Either way, Mask was dead. With that in mind, she pointed her rifle at Mustache, who was still only halfway turned._

_Welkin was still recovering from the swing – but Mustache was almost done turning. "Die!" he cried as the rifle moved the last few inches._

_CRACK. The recoil of the rifle was almost childlike against her shoulder, but its effects were anything but. For a moment, Mustache stood, frozen like they all were, rifle still raised but unfired. Smoke rose from a wound into his lower shoulder. Painfully, he turned his head enough to fire one last insult at Isara. "Darcsen… pig," and with that, he toppled like a felled tree._

_Isara felt herself fill with horror. She'd killed him. She'd actually killed him. Her insides churned – she thought she was going to be sick._

_Welkin saved her from that fate. "Isara, are you okay?" he called._

_She closed off her feelings. There was an evacuation to be done._

"_I'm okay, thanks to you." She lowered the rifle in a daze. "But Martha, I think she's…"_

_Minutes later, they were roaring out of the adjoining shed with a huge, unusual tank, the Edelweiss's first run in a long, long time._

_And in the days to come, she watched Imperial after Imperial fall to the Edelweiss, torn apart by machinegun fire, evaporated in the blast of a shell, or worst of all crushed underneath the treads. She got over her killing horror, knew that it was the only course of action on the battlefield – kill or be killed._

_But those eyes that had chosen the second option haunted her ever since._

Eyes still squeezed shut, she wondered as to how that man, so obviously broken by Welkin's smashing blow, was still here. But whatever the case, he seemed intent on revenge, advancing towards her cautiously – and armed.

She swallowed her insecurities as the-man-who-was-Mask stopped right at the table's side. The warmth of a hand's presence came close to her head. It was kill or be killed. As the hand gently touched her brow, she snapped, and snatched the largest wrench off of her skirt's holsters.

"WEEEELLLLKIN!" she cried as she whipped her entire body to the side, heavy metal tool in hand, whistling through the air at her assailant's skull. Welkin might have failed to kill him the first time, but she couldn't miss, not if she wanted to live.

Except she did, as the steel came to a clanging halt against another object of the same material, sounding how swords must have in the days of the Valkyrur.

Her eyes snapped open, and she rolled slightly, fearfully taking in the gaze of Mask – except he was no longer behind a mask; now his entire face was visible. Silhouetted against a lamp on the ceiling, Isara could still make out that his face was slightly twisted in pain, but still handsome, hair shining as if streaked with white – not merely glare from the lamp. Her wrench had been halted by the head of a small hammer, which he held carefully – not dangerously – over her form.

"Valkyrur, Isara, is this how you greet all your doctors?" he jibed. It was a bit weak, as she now realized that there was a slightly bloody bandage held in place by the gauze eyeband against the side of his head, but it was clear that he was not in any way trying to hurt her.

She had hit him earlier in her semi-consciousness, Isara realized. Oops. The word "doctor" suddenly switched on for her – someone had operated on her wound, and apparently, by the proud way he used the term, it had been him. Oops again. But wait, he didn't look nearly old enough to be that skilled –

There was a scrambling noise upstairs. Footsteps ran a short distance, jumped down a flight of stairs, landed hard enough to shake the floor, and shouldered the door open in haste – Welkin. "Isara! Are you –"

Isara and the doctor, respective weapons still locked together, could only look at him sheepishly as Welkin gaped.

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**Long flashback is long. I'll have to do a second retelling of it from Celes's point of view when he explains to her later – but not now. Next blurb: just how is Welkin going to react to the sight of his half naked sister and the purported "doctor" locked in mortal wrench vs. hammer combat? And just what will Lieutenant Karst and Alicia think?**

**I was really hoping I could find a better way to insert this flashback, or at least trim it down – but I felt it was really important to show how Isara felt. I took some small liberties with it, but overall you should find that it matches the scene exactly.**

**Reviews, however, are going to be needed if you want to see how this pans out. They are the fuel that powers my rocket! No, not that rocket. Eeeeeewwwwww. *clasps hands over eyes***

**But in all seriousness, go hit that button down there. Or else I'll insert in an omake scene involving a rocket. Or maybe I will if you do? The choice is yours! Review and leave your opinion. (NO, NOT THAT KIND OF ROCKET. NO LEMON TODAY. :3)**


	17. Occupational Hazards

**Mr Wang 330: I'm the pervert? Why yes, I most certainly am. Except I do my best to hide it, you know. Covert pervert. Did I just say that out loud? Aaaaaack! The lemon denial is just me covering my bases. And one of my better friends has the last name of Wang, so no, I'm not going to get any funny ideas, no!**

**Rotten-Kraut: Would you prefer something on the scope of Lord of the Rings? :D**

**Cloner4000: Oops, shouldn't have given the idea. And your prediction isn't too far off. As for the whole recognition thing, well, it's not that he was just some random grunt that she squished in the Edelweiss. Remember that Isara has had a grand total of, what, ZERO other experiences with Imperials outside of Edelweiss-smashing. That standoff surely would stand out, and such a minor detail, emphasized with the situation, is just the sort of thing someone would remember from a traumatic situation. I think.**

**Isara and Celes have had their combat interrupted by Welkin, soon to be followed by Alicia and Lieutenant Karst. And the first of those people is half-naked. What will happen? Read on!**

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It could have been a scene from a cheesy drama. He was struggling with a shirtless woman who thought he had dishonorable intentions, and her brother had just flown into the room with the single-minded goal of protecting her.

A second passed as they stood frozen solid in their poses, hammer in his hand still grinding against his one-time patient's own wrench. Another passed, and Celes noted that a vein was bulging in Welkin's eyelid.

He'd never seen that happen before.

Two more went by. The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs broke the standoff, when Celes decided the best thing to do was come clean with exactly what had happened, and dispel any misunderstandings whatsoever.

With that in mind, he gave up the struggle, expecting Isara to stand down as well. What happened was the exact opposite, when the unhindered hunk of steel shot into his skull for the second time.

He went down again. Stars flew around in front of his vision, and the world blurred into grey, but he managed to hold on from it going black, like it had the first time. He had found himself staring into bare light blub on his back, with a wet spot in his hair, still into his medical garb. It would have been quite the sight, but he decided to not tempt hilarity and dump it before trying to check Isara for the second time.

Pattern recognition had driven him to snatch up something to extend his range before approaching the seemingly-innocent form on the table. Yes, it had been the correct move.

Laughing startled Celes out of his reverie as the world slowly came back into focus. He was treated to the rare sight of Lieutenant Karst showing _humor_, not a common sight. As he held his sides and chuckled merrily, Welkin and Alicia stood protectively in front of Isara, who had had Welkin's blue uniform jacket thrown around her shoulders. All three of them appeared completely offended.

"Excuse me, sir, what's so funny about your so-called surgeon molesting an unconscious woman?" Alicia snapped, clearly displeased.

Lieutenant Karst couldn't respond – or perhaps he chose not to – and simply pointed between the two uniformed soldiers. Confused, they looked at each other, before looking slightly farther back. It was only then that they seemed to realize that yes, Isara was conscious and glaring along with them, something that made Celes wonder how Welkin thought of covering Isara without discerning that fact.

Excitedly, they burst into cries of joy and laughter. Celes gave up the struggle and passed out for real.

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**Wrench count: 2.**

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"… there really are good people everywhere." A male voice, enthusiastic, jumping.

"Not really, just right here." A more subdued, elegant voice.

"It worked for me." A hushed, feminine voice, almost sheepish.

It was to this scene that Celes overheard when he finally came to. How long had he been out? Minutes? Hours? A whole day? The throbbing of his head made the last idea seem reasonable.

He realized that someone had been kind enough to prop him into one side of a couch, a fact that only became apparent when he felt himself almost fall out of it. Recovering quickly, he cracked his eyes open and glanced left and right, trying to figure out where he was. Lieutenant Karst was sitting in a chair to his left, the two Gallian officers were sitting across from him – where was Isara?

The former medical student looked to his immediate right and almost fell back into oblivion from shock. She was leaning into the other side of the couch. Despite the apparent relaxed and happy atmosphere, as he could see from the way the seniors were chatting, she still had that blasted wrench clasped in her hand, as if she expected to use it at any moment.

He refrained from stirring any further. It seemed like a poor idea.

"So…" the Gallian lieutenant started, "just where did, er, Celes, right? Yeah, Celes, uh, become such a competent surgeon?"

Celes stayed relaxed, even at the possibly incriminating question. The Lieutenant could definitely handle it.

"The finest Imperial Academy of Medicine, the Vaclav. He was at the top of his class – shame the headmaster decided to volunteer the heads of all those old enough as a 'symbol of goodwill' to the Emperor, long as he may live." Celes's jaw dropped. "Personally, I believe it has something to do with reading all the materials available at the extensive libraries – following piecing together research made by others to come up with the most modern ideas."

And so the minor prodigy promptly fell flat onto his face in shock.

He cocked his head up from the awkward position. "What in Valkyrur's name happened to subterfuge?" It was almost a shriek.

All the Lieutenant could offer was a shrug. "We wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret for long, so I decided to just tell the truth while you were working." He spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world to condemn the entire unit to discovery.

"And NOW what you do plan to do? Kill them after blowing the whole operation?"

"Do _you_ want to do that?" The Lieutenant's voice suddenly became frostily cold.

Stunned silence. It stretched for several long seconds. "… eeehhh, no," came the resigned answer.

Someone shifted awkwardly – when Celes rolled his head to the right to follow the noise, he was treated to the sight of Isara hastily retreating a heavy wrench back to her thigh. He balked. There was already a second lump growing on his head, and he had no wish to add a third. Thoughts of concussions and permanent brain damage spun around his head, but he came to the ultimate conclusion that the damage wasn't permanent. Yet.

As he scrambled back onto his side of the couch, his two-time assailant made her own comment.

"Just what were you attempting those two times anyways?" she said in a low voice. "I don't recall that being a medical procedure."

Angrily, Celes left his refuge in the couch's corner to lean forward in attack towards the other side of the furniture, jabbing a finger towards the Darcsen girl's face. "That, my fair lady, is palpation. I can determine if your organs have any major problems by touch," he retorted, boring his one-eyed glare into her own dark eyes.

She didn't back down, choosing to instead tilt her head in a counter. "I think that's just an excuse to feel up any attractive looking females underneath your care. Conditions by touch? Ha." she grumbled, almost to herself.

Heart _and_ head near bursting with rage, he leaned as far over as he could, close enough to make his single eye only visible to one of hers, taking away any sort of advantage she might have had with her normal two – he watched the pupil of that one dark eye widen in shock, or possibly outrage, and then she averted her gaze. The pointing finger clasped her chin and forced her face up – the single eye he could see snapped back to his own. "I suggest that you avoid insulting another's occupation, Isara," he snarled.

He barely caught a whistling noise to his left – and caught the swinging wrench by her wrist. A red mist descended upon his vision; call him a quack, would she? A wild swing of his right hand pulled at her jacket collar, yanking her face straight up to his.

Lieutenant Karst let out an awkward cough, and as if that was some sort of code for calm, the haze he saw disappeared.

Without anger, suddenly the fact that his face was right next to Isara's was highly embarrassing. He took a deep breath – one laced with the scents of ragnoline and greases, yet somehow sweet and pleasant at the same time – and let her down. He didn't let go of her wrist, though, until he had scooted back into his side of the couch. Sheepishly, he glanced back at her face. Her expression was still smoldering.

Welkin caught the awkward ball and spoke. "Is, don't make me look bad. How'd you feel if I said you couldn't possibly make a tank waterproof?"

"I'd retort that that rhinoceros beetle is the most hideous sight in the world," came the deadpan response.

"HEY!"

It took Alicia's firm hand to restrain him from rising up in righteous indignation.

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**Yes, this conversation isn't done yet. But I'm out of time today – I'll do my best to finish tomorrow, promise! With the return of my supervisor, work has been hectic.**

**I realize that these conversations may seem a bit OOC, but first remember that such intimate contact with Imperials is hardly a normal situation. If you think it's still overly OOC, ping me with a review and point it out! I haven't gotten to touch Valkyria Chronicles in a while, so click that button down there and point out my idiocy!**

… **I used the phrase "intimate contact". WHY?!?**


	18. Not a Fireside Chat

**049 Faithless Observer: Short chapters are a let down, but that's the time I got, folks! Be glad with what you get, you whippersnappers! (Although I doubt many of you are actually younger than me. :3)**

**Cloner4000: Heh, glad that worked out. I was going for the overbearing older brother attitude anyways. As for the wrench count increasing… well, yeah, what more can I say.**

**skycomv2: Funny, that first sentence took more than five words. :O Isara never really had many disagreements with Welkin, aside from that one "none of your business" comment, but it's no huge stretch to see her making such deadpan snarks. As for the Gallians not realizing that Isara wasn't in mortal danger, that's because they thought she had a full day – which, upon finding a competent surgeon well within this time, leads them thinking "oh that wasn't too bad", although I suppose that is a bit cavalier for someone getting shot. Celes is going to drop the bomb on them with his own estimate… (gratuitously supplied by word of god).**

**And so, the conversation continues. Further character development and exposition occurs, as well as some shameless railroading to get everything back on track. Read on, if you enjoy something is isn't drivel!**

**/shamelessboasting**

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As Alicia struggled with Welkin, Celes, mind still preoccupied with his trade, realized that it was about time to inquire about exactly why such a young girl was in the way of lethal gunfire.

"Isara, might I ask what you were doing, to put yourself in a sniper's sights? With all due respect," he coughed, "you hardly look like a front line soldier."

"I've wanted to know as well," Lieutenant Karst added.

The Darcsen girl, still smarting from the scuffle seconds before, glared at both of them. Without backup from her two compatriots, who were still struggling with each other, she sighed. "I really don't know. I was working on the Edelweiss –"

"Edelweiss?" Celes cocked his head inquisitively.

"The tank. What we came in, right, Welks?" She turned her head to her still flustered brother, who by now was less angry than awkward at having Alicia's hands on him.

He shook off the attention – Alicia returned to her seat, but cut in as Welkin opened his mouth. "Yes. It's her father's masterpiece," she said, just a little proudly. "It's a prototype model –"

"There's no other vehicle like it in the world!" Isara cut her off in turn, launching herself into what promised to be a long soliloquy about the marvels of engineering. "My father designed in for the late general, Welkin's father. I've heavily modified it since we enlisted and I –"

Celes swiped his arm horizontally to halt the tumble of words. "You won't get to modify it at all if you don't answer my questions."

Alicia grimaced. "Is that a threat?" She pawed at her knife hilt, but let her hand drop away when the Lieutenant shook his head. Celes sighed. No one respected doctors these days.

"If you weren't so _ignorant_, maybe you Gallians would have realized just how close Isara was to death when you brought her here," he snapped.

Welkin, now slightly mollified, brought up his own opinion. "Well, our medic said she had a day –"

"Your medic is an imbecile."

"Not true! She's kept us patched up throughout this war –"

"That's all she's done. And yes, she is competent in first aid." He felt himself sinking into his own vein of expertise, and pressed on. "But when it comes to matters of internal surgery, she probably hasn't even taken the elementary courses."

Isara opened her mouth to protest, but couldn't find an argument for that. They really didn't know if she was qualified for that, after all.

"You of all people should be angry, Isara."

She narrowed her eyebrows at him. "Oh? And why should I betray my friends so, to have no faith in their skills? We're all people, aren't we?"

Celes's ire rose as he squared off against Isara again. Some petty part of him felt that he would have been much better off letting her die on the operating table – but he quashed that idea immediately. That was heresy to the highest degree for his art. "There's a difference between faith and willful ignorance, child!"

"Oh? Just how old are you?" She stood up straighter, facing off as well. "Your lieutenant said you were 'volunteered' out of your school, so obviously, you can't be any more than five years older than me."

He paused, stymied by the new direction of conversation. "Medical education can last for more than a dozen years," he offered.

"Answer the question."

The former medical student flushed, feeling the amused eyes of the older three soldiers. "Seventeen."

Isara's eyes widened. "I… that's only one more than me."

Sixteen, then, but more importantly, did he really look so old? "I look much older than that, don't I?" When no one spoke, he nodded, pulling back a stray lock of silver-streaked hair, taking the opportunity to ham up the moment. "That's what happens to a man who has his comrades die in front of him, over and over again, and there's nothing he can do about it." He moved a finger to touch the gauze band over his left eye, as if reminiscing – inwardly, he was childishly awaiting some words of praise or awe.

Isara didn't give it to him. "How do you work with only one eye, anyway? What happens to your depth perception?"

"How did you know about that?" he asked, impressed.

"Oh, well, when I'm working on the Edelweiss, and I'm in a tight spot that I can only get one eye into, I have so much trouble determining just how far away some component is," she admitted, as if any sign of weakness in her craft was extremely embarrassing.

Celes decided to refrain from revealing the full truth – that the perfectly healthy eye could still see through the gauze, which obviously let him keep his depth. "You get used to it," he offered.

"How long?" Welkin asked.

Again, he chose not to tell the real story, that he'd had it since he was a toddler, but couldn't think of a particularly solid alibi. Instead, he went for the evasive answer. "Grenade," he lied in a low voice.

Isara stared at his face for a while, and it was then that Celes wanted to bang his head against a wall. A blast that took out his eye probably would have left other scars, scars which were nonexistent on his young face.

Fortunately, Lieutenant Karst stepped in. "You're off topic again." It was a chiding statement, almost as if he was speaking to children – but it had the result of distracting them from that contradictory evidence on Celes's face.

They all jumped a bit, and Celes reverted back to the field of medicine. "In any case, I follow all of the most prestigious medical journals published by the Vaclav – well, I should really say I followed. Past tense, I'm not there any more." He smiled sheepishly – inwardly, he cursed the headmaster again. "Unlike my peers, though, I look elsewhere for the latest ideas in medicine. Did you know that if a person has stopped breathing and their heart has stopped beating, if their tissues or brain aren't overly damaged, you can start those rhythms again simply by manually compressing the chest and giving your own breath? Thump the chest, press your mouth to their own, and breathe. Kind of like a kiss of life." Celes winced to himself – he hadn't meant to bring that up…

Alicia's eyes widened at the thought of a person coming back to life with a mere kiss – not at all what the procedure actually entailed, but she hardly knew better. "Really? Where'd you hear that?"

The former medical student glanced at Isara – a quick moment loaded with significance – and then down to his clasped hands. "A source publicly thought of as disreputable, but one that I've followed diligently. It's quite good…"

Isara didn't miss the look. "Who?"

Celes burrowed his head into his shoulders, refusing to meet her gaze. "A Darcsen," he offered, embarrassed. He knew that there was no real reason – he was half, anyways – but he still thought of himself as an Imperial. He couldn't seriously hold any negative feelings for the persecuted group without being hypocritical, but it was still a less-than-pleasant moment for him.

Isara smiled victoriously, like a cat in cream. In a fit of impish anger, Celes wished for nothing more than for her to drop – dead.

He got half his wish when she her exultant expression collapsed, and she suddenly swooned into the couch's back. Her friends rose up to support her, but Celes waved them off. "Let her rest. She was almost inches away from death…" Irritably, he realized he still hadn't gotten to make his point. "She also bled a lot before she got here. I actually had to give her a transfusion."

"From who?" Welkin asked, hands twitching as if they still wanted to take Isara's shoulders. "I didn't think you had a supply available, and you were the only person down there…" Realization dawned on his face, and suddenly he appeared a lot more respectful of the young man in front of him. Meanwhile, Isara stirred, clasping at her borrowed jacket and wrapping it tighter around her, murmuring something about cold.

"Yes, that's right, I had to provide it. Don't mind the complications, I've type O. Universal donor, she'll be okay – but as you can see, the loss is hitting her now. She'll feel weak, dizzy, and cold until her body catches up with the losses," he snapped. Why was he so riled up about that fact? Was it the knowledge that he had had to help such an ungrateful patient?

Grey started to creep into his vision. Celes suddenly realized what was wrong, and committed his last seconds of consciousness to a tirade. "I don't know how much I gave to her – idiot me – but it feels like it was a bit much for me." He planted an arm into the couch's seat, struggling against the rising mists. "Get some blankets, lay us down… keep us warm. We can't retain much body heat… so if you can get some heating somehow, that'd be wonderful." A shiver ran up his own body – he hadn't noticed before, coming out of unconsciousness, but he did feel abnormally cold. Humiliating for him to be preaching about medicine in such a state.

"But keep me in the same room as her," he forced out. That girl was a hellcat – he had two lumps on his head already. "If there are any complications, I'll need to respond instantly. Oh, and if she wakes up before me, remind her to not move her left arm much… especially not above the shoulder. The pain should be enough of a deterrent, but if she forces it, the muscle could tear and I'd have to work a case of… internal bleeding. Unpleasant."

Speech started to leave him. He could see the senior officers scrambling to meet his demands, but it all seemed so far away…

"Take her wrenshez awah… if sche attakshes me with thoshe a third time, I'm going to leave her to rot…" The threat landed flatly as he began lisping through speech. Imitating Isara's position of huddled cold, he gave up full awareness, and let himself fall into a pair of waiting arms.

He smelled bread – perhaps it was Alicia, with her ridiculous bakery scarf – and heard a motherly voice – was she really so kind? A more patriarchal tone filtered in, probably Welkin, farther away. Several clipped commands were made by a third voice, definitely the Lieutenant. There was activity around him, some slipping sensations, warm cloth against his skin, but then a cold lump settled next to him. Celes uncomfortably pulled away from it as best he could, but he was restrained by some sort of large barrier, and he gave up, settling into full unconsciousness.

And in time, the lump warmed. Completely lost in dreams, he snuggled next to it – it mirrored the movement.

It was a fortunate thing he was fast asleep, else he might have had a completely different idea.

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**You don't get a cookie for guessing what just happened. Hilarity will most certainly ensue tomorrow.**

**Dialogue needed for exposition is a pain to write, and the officers of each side have a lot to say to each other that isn't interesting. I'm going to let logistics be handled outside of the writing, and start focusing perspectives on either Isara or Celes instead of other characters – except for the occasional outside character where relevant for some dramatic irony. Expect the cast you know and love to start disappearing from my writing. This is the beginning of a new arc! They must go, else I break canon!**

**I considered having this blurb from Isara's point of view, but ultimately I decided that Celes could use a bit more exposition before I start wading around in Isara's – also, because whatever "supplementary" exposition I do with Isara's past might be a bit awkward with remaining canon cast lurking around. It might break strands I weren't aware existed. The next blurb will be Isara, I promise.**

**This is also what I call "unconciousness ex machina". It works, sometimes.**

**I'm really sorry that I can't write longer blurbs/chapters, but time is time, and if I had more of it, I'd work longer. But I don't, so… yeah.**

**But hey, that I can make time in my schedule at all is because I'm motivated by feedback, glorious reviews! Leave your comments, suggestions, insults, encouragement, anything in the window that the below button pops up!**

**Oh, and to sweeten the deal, there will be a vote. Who wakes up first, Celes or Isara? You decide. Now go forth and RESPOND!**


	19. About Last Night

**Cloner4000: I. Hate. Your. Soul. For recommending Disability Girls (aka Katawa Shoujo). Sure, it was only one act. That just destroyed my entire day. SO GOOD. Except now I need to hurry to write this! Balls! And I have to spend tomorrow packing for the workshop, and then I'm off… crap, crap, crap! Celes's eye is going to, ahem, "stay under wraps" for a while – I'm intending to use it as a plot point for an arc later.**

**Mr Wang 330: Isara being a bit OOC is probably just the circumstances, yeah. Tell me if I plunge WAY into the deep end, though. As for hell breaking loose, well…**

**And now, as promised, our viewpoint returns to Isara. But Celes has woken up first. Prepare for their first one-on-one conversation amidst a scene of awkward…**

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How humiliating. She remembered feeling triumphant, right before shadows had struck her faster than a speeding Edelweiss. So much for delivering a meaningful blow against Darcsen hatred.

Curled in the fetal position, she mused a bit. She'd felt that rush of pleasure in forcing that pervert to admit there was more to Darcsens than what all the racists said – but she paused. He said he had been following the source that "everyone else" considered disreputable.

Which meant that she hadn't convinced him, but just forced out an uncomfortable fact. Hardly the same thing.

Damn it. At least it had been fun to watch him squirm.

She finally opened her eyes and took stock of her surroundings. What kind of place was this? It was so dark –

Ah. That would explain a lot. She peeled off the blankets she was under, sat up, and instantly regretted acting while still half-asleep. It seemed Welkin had reclaimed his jacket, and kindly hadn't wanted to disturb her further by forcing a shirt on her. Unfortunately, that pervert – Celes, if she remembered her brother's awkward introduction of him – was bustling just in front of her, back turned, stowing away assorted medical-looking tools into a duffel bag.

He was no longer in his strange-looking plain clothes, but in brown fatigues – Imperial issue, no doubt. Agitatedly, he shuffled from point to point along a wall, hurriedly working to neaten up the room. She decided it felt like a basement, cool, and without windows.

It was when she saw him cleaning off a red-stained knife that her stomach turned. Until now, she hadn't really paid much attention to her wound, nor the operation undertaken on it – but now, there was definite evidence that someone had cut her open. Glances around the room confirmed that the tools laid out had probably all been used on _her_.

The thought of being under that one's hands made her uneasy. He remembered how enthusiastically he'd spoken of a "latest idea in medicine" – a "kiss of life". Ugh. She refused to stay under such a man's care, much less remain shirtless in the same room as him, regardless of how competent he was.

She reached down her body, carefully feeling for the wrench that she had utilized multiple times already on his thick skull.

–Nothing. None of her wrenches were still on her skirt – for that matter, anything able to cause bodily harm if swung had been confiscated from her. No screwdrivers, no wrenches, nothing. She still had her bag of tiny tools, but attempting to fight with those was like fighting with toothpicks.

It was hopeless. Angrily, she sat up, hugging the blankets around her shoulders. For a moment she glared at the apparently clueless Celes's back – then she felt how unbalanced and heavy the cloth felt on her. Almost as if they were dragging to the left. Her eyes followed.

Angry, burning, furious rage.

The futon she'd been resting on was a double. And someone had _clearly_ been occupying it a few minutes earlier. It was still warm.

"I believe this needs to be said," came the man's voice. Celes's back was still turned, but there was an amused tone to his tenor voice. Clearly, he'd heard her thrashing. "I was brought up in an Imperial School. Not only do they teach us to treat our patients with the utmost level of respect, we get etiquette lessons for formal occasions. I'm hardly some sort of lecher, and you can stop attacking me like I am one." He broke off with a slight wince, feeling a spot on his head. There weren't any more signs of medical treatment, but apparently, she'd still left a mark.

Isara stayed mute, but her angry front cracked a little. The frank words were hardly what she had expected after their spat when they'd last been conscious.

"It's morning. There's a jacket on the table behind you. Go on, I won't look." These quick statements answered her first three unspoken questions: what time was it, where was a shirt, and could she trust him.

Taken off guard, all she could do was comply. She rose, still hugging a blanket around her, and walked to the mentioned table. Quizzically, she realized the cloth was pulling at the front of her shoulder, a strange sensation. Picking up the jacket with her right hand, she dropped the blanket, and gaped for a bit at the tight bandaging that shrouded her wound. He'd really cut her open.

More importantly, she was actually alive.

Instantly, Isara began to feel that she'd been way too hard on this Celes. He was competent, much better than Fina, at any rate. She was spinning to fit her left arm through the jacket when she was snapped at.

"Don't force your left arm any higher than your shoulder," came the bark. "The muscle is still healing, and if you insist, at best you might not move that arm ever again, at worst you bleed internally and die."

Interesting. Curious herself, she pumped her arm up to shoulder height. Yes, it was pulling – a lot. In fact, it almost hurt, a dull burning sensation. She continued to experiment, bending the elbow, waggling the fingers. At least those were still perfectly functional.

Movement in her peripheral vision made her look up, and she was treated to the sight of Celes pulling a full three-sixty spin on the spot, the first half of the turn slow and natural, the second half done in a split second. She jumped a bit, outraged at his promise of "not looking".

"Just how long were you planning on standing there, woman?" the flustered voice demanded. "Any other patient with half a brain would have put the jacket on _before_ playing with themselves."

Isara winced at his poor word choice, but decided he had a point. She had been standing there for almost a full minute, after all. Carefully, she stuck a still-stiff arm through the jacket sleeve before more naturally guiding her other, uninjured arm into the other. It smelled of a strange combination of sweat, blood, and ragnaid. A realization made her temper rise yet again – was this his jacket? Just what was he intending, anyways?

Celes carefully turned back around, done with his business – everything was packed away now. "Thank you. Now, before we go anywhere, let me fill you in."

He reached down and suddenly began working with metal plates and straps around his boots – metal greaves. Why was he donning armor? Before she could ask, he continued. "Lieutenant Karst has gone and brought the remnants of my unit to this town – Lia, if you weren't aware." Standing back up to scoop up kneeplates off the nearby table, he smiled a bit before bending down again. "You probably weren't, seeing as you were unconscious, and more importantly, dying, at the time."

She wasn't amused, and only scowled at him, fastening the jacket's buttons up. To his credit, Celes didn't seem to be preoccupied with getting last glances at her now-disappearing skin although that might have been because he was busy fitting said kneeplates around his own legs. Her estimation of him rose a few more notches regardless.

"So why haven't the townspeople kicked you out yet?"

"Lia is a primarily Darcsen town." He waved a hand absently at her appalled expression. "No, we didn't massacre them all, you barbarian. We actually saved them."

Taken aback, she asked, "How?" It didn't seem logical any way she looked at it.

"… you're better off not knowing." Before she could continue badgering him on that enigmatic note, he launched back into his pseudo-briefing.

"We know that Welkin and Alicia know we're here, obviously, but they're willing to overlook that fact." He rose again to grab thighplates now, cocking his head in amusement before he began work anew. This time, though, he kept his gaze on her. "That might have something to do with the fact that you're basically our hostage right now."

Isara felt panic grip her chest. Blast, what had Welkin gotten into? On its own accord, a hand sought her wrench yet again. Smiling, Celes waved a hand to the same table he was pulling his armor off of – oh. Her tools were right there.

"All of us – especially me," he added, maintaining that smile, "decided that it was better if you didn't unconsciously attack me in your sleep."

"Why was that a problem?" she baited him. She knew what had transpired, but she wanted to hear the words from his own mouth. Just to make sure that she was justified when she went over and slapped him.

"… because, as your surgeon, I needed to watch over you in case you decided to start dying again of your own accord in the middle of the night."

"Oh, really? And what does that have to do with _sleeping with me?_" she snarled, still hoping that there was some pretense on which she could chastise him.

He flushed, which hammered in the final nail in her first impression's coffin. Not a pervert, then – just a bad introduction. "Well, you were quite frankly low on blood. You would have woken up halfway through the night from cold, maybe even gone into shock, had you not stayed warm."

"… so you slept with me to keep me comfortable. My, what a generous man you are," she said, but now only half-sarcastically.

Embarrassed, he finished the breastplate's fastenings and hid his face behind a hand. "Actually, I needed to be heated as well."

Intrigued, she did her best to raise an eyebrow – failing, she could only take on a look of vague interest, as she walked over and slipped the tools one by one back into their appropriate slots. "Oh really? Why?" she asked, curious. She had dropped all pretense of anger or sarcasm now, letting her get a new impression of him.

Celes dropped the hand and looked at her, chuckling a bit. "You really aren't aware of how close you were to death, are you?"

She shrugged. "I'm standing here conscious a day afterward, how bad could it have been?"

"Really bad." He scoffed in annoyance. "Let's just say," and his face flushed even further, "that you had to have a blood transfusion. And I was the only person available at the moment. And you needed a lot of blood." For a moment, he furrowed his brow. "I think. I was too busy trying to keep you alive to measure just how much I gave you, but suffice to say I was loopy enough afterwards." The medical student come surgeon crinkled the corners of his mouth in a smile. "Of course, the concussions didn't help, either."

Sheepishly, she looked down to dodge his benevolent expression. It took her a second to connect the dots, but she felt something new – a tiny, second scab on her left arm. The Darcsen took a careful look at it, and confirmed its existence. He'd given her blood in the middle of an operation?

Satisfied, she lowered the arm again, fully impressed. "I guess you aren't all bad," she began, but then his earlier words came back into her mind, and she felt her opinion tilt once more. Goodness, was she ever going to have a solid idea of this man? "Just what do you mean by hostage, anyways? Where's Welkin? Alicia?"

Sighing, the Imperial began to finish donning his armor. "Well, you're not really a hostage in the malicious sense of the term. The main reason you're here is because I still need to do a post-operation examination before I can let you return to active service." Suddenly, he froze in place, staring straight into the bracer he was about to attach, seeming extremely agitated.

Isara watched, not knowing exactly what was going on. "Excuse me, Celes, are you alright?" She took a step closer and laid a hand – carefully – on his armored shoulder, shaking it a bit, trying to get him out of his reverie.

The response came in a jerk – a hand full of armor barely missed returning the favor she'd paid him twice already. As she stepped back, he spun his head to look her in the eye – one visible pupil dilating wildly before slowly settling back to normal. Embarrassed, he turned his back on her, continuing to finish his work. "Valkyrur, Isara. Don't scare me like that."

She wanted to point out that he was the one scaring her, but decided that was hardly gracious.

"It's just…" he started, but stopped, choosing his words anew. "It's just that… Marberry…" he choked, as if that word was death, "was only a few days ago. And I… you work on and drive that monster of a tank – the Edelweiss, you called it?"

She nodded, urging for him to continue.

"Let's not forget that I had to watch that thing butcher half my unit in front of my very own eyes."

Oh. With all of the other, slightly more important things going on – like her dying – she'd almost forgotten that they'd been shooting at each other a scant two days ago.

"Alicia… she shot the men of my fireteam on the run." He ran a finger in one of the unarmored slots between plates. "That's no mean feat. She was… a devil on that battlefield."

Head swimming with contradictions, she realized just how magnanimous of him it was to have not killed her on the spot – to go so far as to do the exact opposite and save her from death. She even remembered him from Bruhl; she wanted to ask more questions, to probe deeper as to why he was seeing him again here, still in Gallia alive and kicking, but ultimately she decided to refrain from the awkward questioning – for now – and simply nod in agreement with him.

"Well," he started in a new tone of voice, "anyways, there's another reason you're still here. Welkin and Alicia have returned to the beaches with the good news. Your only good radio is in that tank, anyways." He matched her small smile. "If they're decent human beings, they'll be glad to hear you've been saved, although they're not going to say exactly by who."

Isara thought of how Rosie had been opening up to her, seemingly changing her viewpoint from "Darcsen scum" to "friend" up until the point she'd been shot. She widened her smile, nodding again.

"To put it bluntly, though, your presence here also acts as insurance. If Squad 7 reports us – Imperial remnants – to the army, we kill you." He spoke flatly, as if ashamed of the fact.

Isara accepted the information solemnly. It was what she could only expect, after all. She knew that it wasn't going to happen, with her being so important to Welkin, Alicia, and many of Squad 7's non-racist members, and in any case, she would have been shocked to know of such blunt betrayal of goodwill.

"I need to go check up on my squadmates." His dark expression told of exactly which kind of squadmate _he_ would be checking on, with his profession. "You're still in half Gallian uniform – I advise that you not leave this basement. One of us might panic and shoot you. Being honest here." Celes tried a joke, but it fell flat on its face.

"So what if they come in here?" She had to ask. It wasn't as if her admittedly lacking knowledge of hand to hand combat could protect her.

"Oh, they won't. The spokesman – Charles, you haven't seen him – has designated this place a safe haven. He's made sure that all of the townspeople know that we're their friends." He smiled a bit. "I hope."

Almost fully suited up, he grabbed his helmet and pulled it over his head with a gauntleted hand. When he gave her a last glance, it was like Bruhl, all over again, a facemasked helmet, only a single eye giving any emotion. But it did – and it was certainly giving away a much lighter emotion than the last time she had seen it this way.

"I'll come back with breakfast alright? And then we talk about… the past. The first operation." He paused, forcing the word out. "Bruhl."

And on that note, he slipped past her incredulous expression through the basement door and closed it behind him. For a moment, she stared at it, irritated that she had been left hanging, but sighed, and gave up on following. She looked down on her skirt, most definitely part of Gallian uniform. Yes, not getting shot was a good idea.

"I'll be waiting," she muttered.

One of the overhead lamps flickered and died. Now with something to do, Isara began pulling a table and boxes together to reach it.

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**Long talk is long. If you see any repeated conversational topics, let me know. I wrote this as I saw it in my head, and haven't proofread it yet – so if you see any egregious errors in grammar or spelling, let me know. If at any point it reads really awkwardly, let me know. **

**I've dodged past the leadership's conversations and chosen to have Celes expose it, but if it needs more explanation, let me know. Isara and Celes have revealed some facts to each other, getting some important exposition and "what else has been happening" done, but any of it seems out of sync with canon… let me know. If they're acting OOC – well, mainly Isara, but a little bit of Celes, too – let me know. **

**If you have any ideas for what should happen next, comments on this important first conversation, or complaints that I didn't mention something, let me know.**

**Oh, and if this repetition of "let me know" is getting on your nerves… let me know. *dodges slap***


	20. Breakfast Ideals

**Cloner4000: I can smell the sarcasm from my seat here. And that's a strong scent. :3 In any case, they're going to talk about Bruhl next – and we're about to step into the first real arc of their (mis)adventures.**

**Mr Wang 330: Yeah, I juggled having Isara wake up and go batshit insane, but in the end decided that this was a good way to characterize Celes – he's professional. Also, I really thought that having her fly into a rage – even trying to make it IC – was going to push even more limits. It actually makes a lot more sense for her (as in, staying IC) to be compassionate. She's only been axe (wrench?) crazy due to stress and unknown surroundings for now. As for canon effects… read on.**

**DC20: Yeah, earlier Isara "recognized those eyes". Also, lampshading is awesome – I knew I'd be smashing the WTF meter, as you so eloquently put it, but I figured having the namesake character be out of it for so long would be a larger wallbanger, so meh. This is my choice.**

**This is about to hit the big break – where Isara meets her cut from the published storyline. It may seem a bit deus ex machina, but hey, how else? Don't tell me that her sniping in the game was any less random.**

**This workshop is something crazy – we're running around busy from like 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM. I'm hard pressed to get any writing done, and I'm fitting in five minutes here, ten minutes there. The story will start to get choppy – let me know if you would prefer me to consolidate blurbs together as I write.**

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With a light heart, Celes walked down the stairs, duffel swinging lightly on his shoulder, two trays of delicious breakfast in his hands. Eggs, bacon, toast, the whole nine yards – it seemed that the women of Lia were sincere in their thankfulness, despite their Imperial heritage.

Pausing at the door, he mused. Could they truly be called Imperials now? Lieutenant Karst had their shattered unit operating smoothly as possible – they had half of the remaining dozen on patrol immediately around the town limits, the other half helping with the light damage that the hamlet had suffered during the hunters' assault. Tella was busy listening in on the radio on Gallian movements as best he could, although most of the orders flying through the air were in code that they were not familiar with – undoubtedly updated in preparation for the assault on Marberry.

Shaking the painful memories from his head, he knocked on the door with an armored toe. "Coming in," he chimed, as pleasantly as he could.

As a response, he got a loud crashing noise, followed by the tinkle of a bouncing metal tool. "Isara?" he called in confusion.

Nothing. With trepidation he elbowed the doorknob and stepped in –

He wasn't so flustered as to drop the food, but it was a close thing. Quickly sliding the trays onto a table, he ran to Isara's fallen form, which was currently prostate on the blankets, surrounded by a few boxes which most certainly hadn't been there when he'd left. Looking at the table that was inches away from her feet, Celes drew the conclusion immediately.

"Just what in Valkyrur's name did you think you were doing?" he grumbled as he stepped over, peeling his helmet off in the process. She groaned a bit, moving her right hand over her eyes in pain. "You're lucky to have landed on those blankets. If you hadn't, you could have split your head open." Letting a stream of expletives out of mouth, he gruffly helped her into a sitting position.

"I'm sorry," she groaned. "I just saw the light and thought I should…"

Celes glanced up, saw the burnt out light, and resisted the urge to grind his forehead into his palm – the armored gauntlet would only succeed in adding to his annoyance. "You. Are. Just. Out. Of. Life. Threatening. Surgery," he berated her. "We can live with a one dimmed light – you, on the other hand, are going to die if you insist on abusing yourself like this. I know which one I'd rather have alive."

The Darcsen scoffed. "You mean the light, don't you," she sneered – but the attack was only half-hearted.

With a pained sigh, he stood back up, and quickly moved the furniture back into place. "You really are a fighter, aren't you? Everyone's always against you," he mused, coming back to offer a hand. Instead of taking it, though, Isara pointedly ignored him and stood up on her own power – and dizzily almost fell again, stopped only by Celes's firm grip on her unwounded shoulder. "Really, stop fighting me here. You're hurting no one but yourself."

Surprisingly, she let herself be frog-marched into a chair, dropping her head onto the table. He took his own seat across from her, dropped his helmet onto the wood, and slid a tray full of biscuits, eggs and bacon in front of her nose.

The results were astounding. Isara's face perked up immediately, and with an almost pained face she reached towards the silverware with both hands –

And winced, retracting her left. Grimly, she picked up the fork with her right, and glared at him, as if challenging him to mock her situation.

Inwardly, Celes could only sigh. "I already took the trouble of making sure that you could eat the food with one hand." Indeed, the food was already cut into bite-size pieces.

"You didn't have to do that." Her voice was level and even, as if she wasn't sure whether to be insulted or thankful.

He smiled in response. "But if I hadn't, you would have been too busy wincing in pain to talk while we eat." Metal gauntlets clattered against the table as he unfastened the clasps. When the armor joined the helmet on the table, he eagerly picked up his own utensils, plowing into a pile of sausage.

Isara only gave him another unreadable look before beginning to eat herself. For a few minutes, they concentrated on their food. As he polished off a biscuit, Celes started the conversation. "Just what made you feel that you had to accomplish something, anyways?"

She ducked her head – either she was having trouble swallowing, or embarrassed. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell before she gulped down a mouthful of eggs. "It was broken. I was bored. You did leave me all alone, after all." The words held a slight edge to them, despite his earlier explanation.

"Rest never occurred to you?"

"… not really."

The Imperial sighed. "Are all the militia like you?"

"Most of my squadmates are," she said, a bit proudly.

He grunted in response. "No wonder why we're having so much trouble where the militia's involved. Highly amusing, though, that your regulars are pushovers."

"Really?" The question was rhetorical and sarcastic, and Celes couldn't help a smile.

"You should have been treated by one of your own doctors," he began to hypothesize, "but instead, your brother came roaring up here looking for a doctor." He watched her expression soften in sympathy – his own heart twisted and squirmed with the incoming subject he would have to broach. "He was lucky, in more way than one."

"… thank you."

He almost spewed biscuit out of his mouth. Isara was thanking him? The next thing he knew they'd be married and have more children than Lieutenant Karst, which was saying a lot.

"No need, no need." He waved her off, not knowing exactly how to respond to that statement. "And well…" he began, "About before."

"Bruhl," was all she said. Celes did a double-take – she'd finished eating the huge plate, and he was only half done with his own tray. Post-operation hunger, indeed.

"Bruhl," he responded.

"You barged into my home, spouted insults at me, were a hair away from executing me and Martha. Welkin smashed you in the face with a fencepost, and I killed your comrade with a bullet." The summary was brutal, but apparently truthful – from her point of view.

Celes rested his fork on the remnants of his eggs. Subconsciously, he put a hand to his brow, remembering that solid impact of wood against skull. "Yes, we broke into your house, and yes, we did bombard you with insults. But let me summarize the end with this: Lieutenant Karst is our commanding officer."

He got a blank look in response.

Celes let out one last sigh. "Let me explain…"

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**I'm debating the contents of the next blurb. I really want to do the same Bruhl flashback, from Celes's point of view. However, I get the feeling that that might just be over the top and unnecessary. If you would prefer me to skip that and simply have them chat a bit, with the flashback implied, then leave a review saying so. If you do want to read it, though, say that.**

**Remember, if at any point characters seem way OOC, or there are any continuity breaks, hit me on the head with a hammer and tell me! Otherwise, I'll never improve.**

**You may note that I'm milking a lot of your reader input – and this is intentional. This is because I am in no position to actually play the game right now, and therefore have really only you people as a source. Okay, I guess I could also peruse the Emoprinny playthrough, but unfortunately I don't have that much time. Gotta fly now! Keep faith in me, I'm working every minute I get!**


	21. Brutality Aversion

**Cloner4000: Nah, I can keep the 3 day thing. Just check out today's update. Right now, the program has loosened a bit - but two of these four weeks are going to be hellish, and another two are going to be relatively easy. I got an easy week first, but the other three have no particular order. So yeah. :/ As for the content, well, I had the flashback anyways. The explanation is still there, however... next blurb.**

**DC20: Mmmmm, applied phlebotinum. I love playing with it. And yeah, wallbanger indeed.**

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_Bruhl: the first push into Gallia, freshly manned with units moved from the Federation front, units that included Lieutenant Karst's 29-4._

_It was only a few hours after the operation had begun; only the scouts and a few of the vanguard had begun to enter the outskirts._

_Unit 29-4 was in the vanguard, along with 32-5 and 38-1. Lieutenant Karst had requested the position personally._

_They had split into ten man sections, further divided into two or three man fireteams. Celes found himself paired up with Nero. Nero was a jolly sort, although Celes would have preferred to have been assigned with someone a little more serious; he was overweight, a cardinal sin for a soldier, and pridefully sported a ridiculous (and most certainly regulation breaking) mustache. It was overgrown to the point where wearing his faceplate became uncomfortably stifling for him, and so it was that the moment the two of them split from their section to raid the nearest house, he detached the armored plate to give himself more breathing room._

_Still, Nero had a happy family back home – and thus was extremely inclined to avoid killing civilians. For that, Celes was grateful._

_Their orders had been to disrupt and harass, to take the fighting spirit out of the townspeople – in other words, to massacre them. Celes's fireteam had already passed another from 32-5 bomb a passing truck, and mow down the civilians – including women and children – that fled the scene._

_The only thing they could do was push forward, ahead of the "loyal" – bloodthirsty – units. If they could confront the Gallians first, Lieutenant Karst could have wishes fulfilled._

_And so it was that the two Imperials found themselves in front of a grand house, larger than any of those they'd seen in the distance – it even had a white picket fence. It seemed relatively empty though – all Celes could hear were the gentle sounds of packing, from a single room._

"_You ready?" he asked, softly and lowly, to Nero._

_The rotund man nodded. "Shoot your weapon, and you're buying." It was spoken with a smile, though. They both knew that each of them was going to be trying their hardest to not be the first to pull the trigger._

"_Ghosts?" Celes offered, referring to one of many scare tactics they had._

"_Ghosts," Nero confirmed. They'd sneak in as close as possible, only to pop up when at an advantage to surprise whoever was inside into surrender. Hopefully._

_Quietly jumping over the fence – no mean feat in full armor – they approached a side door, closest to where they heard the sounds of packing. Celes tried the door – locked. Behind the armored faceplate, his mouth twisted into a disappointed frown. So much for "ghosts"; neither of them had a lockpicking kit, and any other methods would most likely generate a huge amount of noise, making stealth a moot point._

_Just then, there was a muffled exclamation, followed by the sound of falling objects and a tripping person. Nero raised an eyebrow, mustache twitching humorously. The younger Imperial could only shrug in response. "Shock?"_

"_Shock," Nero agreed._

_With that, they arranged themselves in front of the door. Celes glanced over to the mustached man again – smiling, Nero slid his hand away from the grip of his rifle. Blast. He'd have to buy the drinks._

_He stood at a forty-five degree angle to the doorknob – Nero shifted behind him. Bracing his rifle against his shoulder, he fired a single shot._

Crack._ The heavy round smashed into the flimsy mechanism, shattering it, ripping the bolt out of the frame. A solid kick later, they were in, and the armored figures barreled into the room – a kitchen – like a herd of stampeding bison, except with guns._

_Leather soles came to a screeching halt on the stone floor. Boxes, crates, and other packing containers were strewn all around what appeared to be a kitchen. In the middle of the mess were two women, an older round – pregnant? – one, and a young Darcsen, who was pointedly ignoring them, choosing to instead continue to worry over the first woman. That was troublesome; "shock" meant doing everything to keep their targets' attention on them._

_Nero was the one to try for that. "What's her problem? She pregnant, or just fat?" Inwardly, Celes cringed; both words and tone were heartlessly callous. The comment got the Darcsen's attention – she jerked her head to glare at them._

_The younger Darcsen felt compelled to add his own comment. Following Nero's example, he purposefully filled his mouth with figurative nails before speaking. "Who cares? Not gonna make any difference when she's dead." Wonderful – and spine tingling._

_But it had no visible effect on his target; instead, she stood up and faced him off. "Stop this now." Bad, bad, very bad – she wasn't backing down._

_Show the target you have confidence. Nero dropped his rifle's end to the ground for a bit, commenting on her clothing. "She's a Darcsen." Despite the gravity of the situation, Celes wanted to smile – as if he wouldn't know that fact. Sure, he may not have been raised as one, but he'd done enough reading on his own time to know about them._

_He only gave Nero a nod. "Then that explains it," he bandied. "I thought this place stunk. Now I know it does. So, we got ourselves a fat one, and a stinky one," he improvised, referrging to the stereotypical Darcsen stink after working in ragnite mines and processing. His composure almost shattered – the fat one and the stinky one? That could apply to the two of them almost as well as their targets. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't let the humor completely stay separate from his speech. "Pee-eew, it's a regular pig farm in here," he added. _

_She glanced away, but it wasn't a look of desperation but a look of steel. Before he could stop her, she'd flipped in an impressive cartwheel and ended in a crouch – and suddenly the barrel of another rifle was pointing into his stomach. It took him great effort to avoid flinching, and even more to not shoot her in self-defense on the spot. At this close range, the bullet would almost be guaranteed to penetrate – but he'd definitely survive to retaliate. All he had to do was not provoke her any further…_

"_I will thank you to watch your tongue in this house." His estimation of Gallia rose several notches. Here she was with two trained soldiers who were apparently going to kill her and her friend, and all she cared about was the language they were using? "You have to leave. NOW."_

_He almost wanted to comply, to give it up and leave, but the medical student stayed himself. If they ran into any other units of the vanguard, they'd be mown down on the spot, and no amount of spunk could block a bullet. It seemed like such an easy thing to simply tell the truth – but he already knew that she'd only consider that as a ploy, and deny it vehemently._

"_That's a big gun for such a little girl." Inside his own head, he meant it as a complement, but he forced himself to turn it into yet another insult – he felt his composure slipping, knew that sooner or later the situation would collapse. "Drop it," he barked. This girl was right. Something had to happen – NOW._

_But she only stared knives at him, not at all intimidated. Nero moved aside to cover the fallen woman – his face was a bored look, the look that Celes knew Nero faked whenever he was under duress. His grip tightened on his rifle, and he began to brace himself for a shot –_

_CRASH. "ISARA!" a male voice screamed behind them._

_Failure. They'd missed a man. He smiled as benevolently as he could, tipped the rifle up, and turned – _

_The white of impact. His head, then. Webbings snapped underneath the pressure of his skull, but it was enough to save him from lethal concussion. His armored form was thrown to the side, and he let himself land heavily onto the stone. Don't fight it… act dead…_

_There was a rifle shot – only one. So Nero was down as well. People scrambled around, called to each other, and there was the sound of a vehicle driving away – what vehicle? – but soon it was silent once more._

_He rolled over, wincing at the angle of his crumpled body. The broken webbings in his helmet meant the thing no longer fit on his head, and so the first thing he did was dump the metal bucket off of his cranium. After sitting a moment, he bent his head between his knees, feeling the blood pulse within his skull. Hurt. So. Much._

_And then he was scrambling up, swinging his duffel to the ground, flinging out bandages and ragnaid. Gauntlets clattered to the ground as he worked his fingers into Nero's bloody armor, popping off the backplate of the cuirass. _

_His unconscious form stirred, but Celes sighed in relief. A right shoulder wound. A few hours later and he'd have bled to death, but that wasn't going to happen while he was here._

_When Nero finally woke up a few hours later, Celes dragged him back to the post-operation rendezvous. He grumbled the entire way, but at least they were alive._

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**And the two of them will wrap up their conversation next.**

**No pithy end quotes for now, I've got to run… ack! But leave me some input! Please!**


	22. Explode

**049 Faithless Observer: Eh? When'd Isara shoot Celes? That'd be something.**

**Cloner4000: The quality is really shaky – I'll probably need to spend a few days doing nothing except fixing what I've already written.**

**And here I pull further strings to progress the story further. You'll see just why this happened next blurb…**

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"So neither of you died?" Isara asked, after Celes had finished his own side of the story. The question was more ironic than serious, given the person sitting across from her right now.

He offered a tired smile. "Yeah. Nero had a full recovery with a little more ragnaid and a few days off the field. As for me… well, maybe I just have a hard head." He adopted a snarky expression. "Valkyrur knows you've already smashed it twice already, and I'm still here."

She ducked her head – blue-black hair swept forward over her face, hiding her obviously embarrassed expression from view. For a moment, Celes thought it endearing, almost cute – then he reminded himself of his position and gave himself a hard mental slap.

"Hey, don't mind that," he began as he began to stack the finished breakfast dishes together. "I'm no worse for the wear – I think," he quickly jibed, "and you're recovering nicely. We'll have the post-operation examination tonight. Hopefully, you'll be good to return to active duty."

"Why the wait?" she asked, looking up just a bit. The hair parted enough to reveal a single curious eye.

"That's just how long it is," he offered. As she came back up, indignant, he added,"Yeah, I know, that's a lame answer, but time is really all that your wound needs now."

Cleaned up, he pulled his gauntlets back onto his hands, but left his helmet on the table. The remains of the food were slid to the side, and he leaned back in his chair, staring up into the dark lightbulb. A thought occurred to him.

"You wanted to fix that lamp?"

"Well… it _is_ broken."

"Come here."

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Silently, Celes offered up a pair of wire cutters to Isara. "You ever consider that maybe the lightbulb is just broken?" he asked.

She said nothing, but only applied the tool to something up in the ceiling – click. "If it was broken, the filament wouldn't be intact, as you can obviously see," she said, rapping the unlit bulb with a gloved finger.

"You've already worked an entire hour."

"Be quiet. I found the problem. Faulty wiring short-circuited and fused together." Her voice was flat as she concentrated, unwilling to be overly distracted by anything else.

"Look, you're in an extremely awkward position right now. You ever consider asking for help?" It was true – Celes was resolutely forcing her to keep her left arm by her side. Personally, he would have had her resting in bed, asleep, but she wasn't going to have any of that.

Suggesting as much would probably end with a third wrench print in his skull.

Once again, the Darcsen girl was perched on top of a tower of tables and boxes, but this time, with the added help of an extra pair of unwounded arms, the construction was actually stable. Celes sat halfway up the arrangement, acting as a makeshift left-hand for her by moving tools to and from her active hand.

"Would you let someone else less qualified to cut someone open in front of you?" she asked.

He grunted. "I would prefer you use a less brutal term, but I guess not…" he ceded.

"Hand me a bit of A7 copper wire."

"… do I need to remind you that you don't have raw materials on you?" He let his eyes glance across her skirt. There were wrenches, clippers, clamps, and more, but certainly nothing that looked like wire.

"Check the bag." Indeed, there was a small bag hanging off her belt, a bag that Celes had mentally marked down as holding personal effects.

Sighing, he lifted himself up just a little higher, worming his gauntleted fingers – she hadn't even given him a chance to take them off, he had been kept so busy – into the pouch. Metal scraped against metal, and his digits closed around a coil of some kind. Upon lifting it out, he flicked the paper tag that was wrapped around the length of copper. "A7. Might I ask why you have this with you?"

"The same reason you have bandages and ragnaid. It's a core component of many devices – no engineer would be caught dead without any."

"I didn't know that," he said appreciatively.

"I wouldn't have expected you to." The wire cutters came back down. Wordlessly, he replaced them with the coil.

"Idiot." Celes said nothing – she'd said as much at least a dozen times already. "Take those cutters and cut me about ten centimeters, and give me that."

"That's a bit? Because you never did define that."

She paused – he imagined she was smiling to herself. "Sorry," but then her voice flattened again. "Now get this down, my arm's getting tired."

"I think you should be getting some rest," he daringly offered.

Surprisingly, her hand didn't go for a wrench. "Maybe," she ceded, "but this is a fire hazard. It really needs to be fixed. After all, you said I had to stay down here?"

"Yes…" He gave up, applying himself to her orders again. He could already see the path the conversation was going to take, that she'd bring up how being burnt was hardly healthy, and force him to keep working with her. It was definitely best to just let her have her way.

Besides, he was sitting lower that her. And she was wearing a skirt. He knew better than to gently suggest that she move slightly – she'd resolutely planted herself in the "best" spot – and bringing the matter up would only result in tears –

He cut his train of thought off immediately, feeling the brevity of his seventeen years. There was a rumor that once Lieutenant Karst had been assailed by a group of scantily clad women in his private residence in an attempt to create a scandal and discredit him – he was a married man, after all – but he had somehow floated through the entire situation without compromising anything. Celes wouldn't be surprised if it was true, but regardless, he was not his lieutenant.

Absently, he heard a slight high-pitched noise. "What are you doing?" he offered in an attempt to make conversation.

The fumbling overhead ceased. Carefully, she said, "I was about to ask you that."

"Well, I'm not doing anything, is it something up –"

BOOM.

The world shook – the stack of boxes collapsed, the table tipped to one side, and Isara followed, a loud exclamation on her lips. In flight himself, Celes was barely able to grab the nearest part of her and pull her away from the falling weights.

They landed in a heap, on the other side of the destroyed construction. He decided it was best to let go of her rear before she noticed – and start asking questions.

"Just what was tha –"

He was cut off by a second shudder through the ground. A few more boxes toppled, but nothing major fell that hadn't already. The entire room was a mess.

She shakily rose to her feet, planting herself in a wide stance – Celes scrambled up himself. He had a sinking feeling what was going on.

A third tremor later, he flung himself at his helmet, understanding. That was the rhythm of artillery.

"We're being shelled!" he screamed at her, as his masked helm came over his head – the webbing caught for a moment at his eyeband, but fortunately it came free. He wasn't sure if he was incredulous, angry, or stunned – perhaps a combination of all three.

So they'd trusted Welkin to keep them safe. And here they were with explosives dropping all around them.

Just to get a dozen Imperials in an entire village full of civilians. The thought made him sick.

His armored fingers scrambled for a weapon, anything, but he had nothing. He decided that his metal fists that were the best he had, but when he launched himself at the traitorous Darcsen, his foot stuck to the ground on the first step. Why was she still here, then?

Her own face was just as shocked as his must have been. If they were being shelled, she was going to die too.

For a moment, they stood across from each other. The silence broke when Isara looked up, an expression of relief on her face. "They've stopped, that was fast –" she began.

Celes still heard the falling shells. And if his timing was right, one was about to hit –

You never heard the shell that hit you.

Only one of them was wearing armor.

That one slammed into the other in a flying tackle, covering her screaming form with his armored body.

And the entire world disappeared in a wave of pressure and fire.

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**It's too bad that we already know that these people are going to live due to the fact they're main characters. Plot armor for the win.**

**Leave me some encouragement. Tell me what needs improvement! I'm slaving away for you guys, so the least you can do is say thanks. :p**


	23. Chapter 5: The Price of Hatred

**skycomv2: I didn't like chapter 19, but it was imperative that the tale move on. I considered having Isara mellow over time, but that didn't quite mesh – Isara is a kinder person at heart. As for the Gallian "kevlar" uniforms, remember that Isara was wearing Celes's plainclothes jacket at the time. Her own jacket was cut away during surgery.**

**Soviet Sniper92: Nice to know I have dedicated readers! I know I should have longer blurbs, but I've got a LOT of work. Not to mention, I'm considering beginning a second writing project (AW NAWH), so that could get hairy fast.**

**Cloner4000: Yeah, quantity over quality. I'll fix them… someday… :3 As for basements being safe from shelling, FALSE. If anything, it's actually more dangerous – if the house is hit, it'll hit the roof/penetrate into the house anyways. But when it collapses on you… yeah, you're screwed regardless. Unless you're in full armor.**

**Now we get a look somewhere else while our titular characters are busy being unconscious underneath a smoking ruin…**

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"Direct hit! Ha!"

The Gallian militiaman lowered his binoculars and pumped his fist into the air. Flowers of smoke and fire bloomed within the filthy town with throaty roars, cleansing it of Darcsen stink, while they watched a long distance down the road, perhaps few kilometers.

"Hey, what are we going to say to the higher-ups about this?" whined Marat. His voice might have sounded so nasal due to the huge glasses that weighed down on his face. "I mean, there isn't exactly an Imperial platoon massacring the town right now…"

"They ran away."

Marat let out a huge bark of laughter, impossibly loud for his stick-like frame. "Of course." Shakily, Marat raised his own binoculars to his face. Inwardly, Rooney wondered how Marat could possibly need further optics after those spectacles, but he kept quiet, instead turning back to watch the fun once more. A Darcsen burst out of a house only to fly apart in an especially large plume of smoke and flame, adding his own limbs to the spectacle. The militiaman chuckled.

"Sir!" Larry called from his own perch, on top of a fence along the stone path. He waved an arm – his left, as his right was in a sling at the moment from the fiasco earlier – pointedly towards one of the hills. "I thought I saw an Imperial, on top of that ridge!"

Rooney jumped, almost dropping his binoculars onto the hard surface. "WHAT?!?"

"I don't know sir, it was a man in armor –"

The pop of gunfire was barely audible underneath the grumble of the ordnance, but it was perfectly apparent when Larry toppled off his perch with a loud curse amidst a flurry of bullet impacts. Wood from the fence shredded into the air and chips of stone whizzed like angry hornets as the fire lines chased the man's scrambling form along the ground, shredding into him again and again.

A second later, he was dead, armor no match against concentrated fire.

"AMBUSH!" someone screamed. The other members of Rooney's squad – all who were still able to stand after the last time – freed themselves of their own optics and began scrambling for weapons, real Gallian arms. Rooney swung his head from side to side, searching frantically for a sight of their attackers. Damn! While they'd been chuckling about dropping artillery on phantom Imperials, some real ones had actually snuck up on them!

When Nathan received a brutal earwaxing in front of him, sniper rifle toppling from his hands, Rooney found his orientation, following the path of the bullet to the same hilltop that Larry had waved to. Shocked, he raised his binoculars, not believing what he thought he saw.

What he saw only confirmed his fears. There was a full fireteam of Imperial soldiers along the crest of the position, using it as cover as they opened up with small arms: carbines, automatic rifles, and a few sniper rifles.

A bullet ricocheted off of the casing of the binoculars – they flew out of his hands, shattering into a dozen pieces. Rooney thought it best to find some cover.

There was a small ditch alongside the road – he rolled into it, alongside the seven or so other Darcsen hunters that he'd dragged out for revenge. Their faces were shocked, pale with fear. Perhaps four of them were dead on the road already.

Hands shaking in terror, Rooney bent over the radio that they'd dragged with them to call in the artillery. Dials twisted in his hands as he moved the frequency over to the distress channel. "Mayday! Mayday! Heavy Imperial presence! Need backup! Send tanks!" he blindly screamed into the pickup.

A response crackled through the speakers – the dials flew in his hands as he struggled to cut the interference out of the signal. A female voice filtered through the speakers.

"… soldier, report your location and business."

"Sergeant James Rooney, of Squad 2! Was on a reconnaissance mission with around a dozen assorted militia!" He stopped, taking a deep breath, trying to calm down. A bullet zipped by his ear – wincing, he began screaming again. "Found some Imperials in a village, called in a barrage! Looks like there were more of them than we saw! Need reinforcements!"

"… report enemy numbers, soldier. Help is on the way."

Rooney risked a glance out of the ditch – he could only see a line of tan armor along the hillside before a line of fire forced his head down again.

"There's a whole hill of them! Maybe a full squad, I can't see! I've lost half my men already!"

"… understood. Squad 7 is in the area. They are en route right now."

Squad 7 – how ironic. Their leader, Lieutenant Welkin Gunther, was a practical war hero, having found victory at campaigns such as the Kloden Wildwood and Fouzen. But he was also a Darcsen lover – not only did he not see any good reason to hate them, he encouraged peace with them. He even had an adopted Darcsen sister!

But anything was better than getting cut to ribbons by an Imperial force.

Another line of fire traced across the ditch, this one from a new angle – another one of his team flailed wildly, fatally pierced.

"Run!" Rooney screamed. "They're flanking us!" Abandoning the radio, he scooped up his rifle and fled through the ditch. Clumsily, his teammates followed.

Imperial fire would claim almost all of them before they were out of sight.

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**Oh, Rooney. You provide so much suction… you're going to be such a scrappy villain. **

**This blurb is short not only because there really isn't too much else for Rooney to see – he IS under fire, after all – but also because I'm running ragged.**

**Next up, just what does Welkin see? How does Isara leave the story line?**

**And if you see anything, tell me.**


	24. Aftershock

**DC20: Some of it was a bit choppy, yeah, but that's quality control for you. And you hink you see where I'm going? :O**

**Soviet Sniper92: That second project is really an extra, something I can't work on for long periods of time even if I wanted to. (Which I do, but I force myself to work on this first.) I know the whole "multi-tasked into oblivion" story, so I hope to keep myself in the black.**

**What happens now? Welkin arrives on the scene in the ruins of Lia. What can the Gallians do?**

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It was Fouzen all over again.

Welkin held his head in his hands as he sat on the turret of the Edelweiss, heartbroken beyond all belief. All around, members of Squad 7 helped the survivors of the shelling, whether it was doing their best to help with the first aid or digging for the bodies of those lost. Shock and disbelief were their two most prominent expressions – not even Largo, the Europan War One veteran, could keep a straight face.

Alicia trudged toward him, tears freely falling from her face. "Lieutenant…" she began, but her voice cracked, and she had to stop.

"Sergeant," was all the response from the nature lover. He didn't raise his head.

"Lieu- _Welkin_, Charles…" The expression on her face said it all. The spokesman hadn't survived the shelling.

That bad news was enough to stir the officer out of his stupor. "I'm sorry," he started, but he stopped himself before he said anything else. What could he be sorry for?

Alicia took a step closer, then abandoned all pretense of professionalism and hopped onto the Edelweiss as well. Settling next to Welkin, the two of them looked out on the ruins together.

There wasn't a single structure that had survived the blast. Twisted timbers and broken walls stretched towards the sky like the fingers of dying men reaching to the heavens, and huge pillars of smoke rose from the smoldering piles of rubble, thick enough to darken the sky above the entire town – what remained of it, anyways.

It was a depressing sight. It was so much like Fouzen, where an entire concentration camp had been burned down – each and every prisoner still inside.

Minutes passed. It was when one of the Darcsen inhabitants, busy at work digging out a house with three members of Squad 7, uncovered a shawl that a dull shock went through Welkin, reminding him of who they were also looking for. "Isara-"

"Your sister – "

They both stopped, surprised at the simultaneous realization but too pained to laugh at it. Alicia coughed into her hand, hiding her face in embarrassment. "Do you think she's alive?" she offered half-heartedly.

Welkin hung his head low. "I hope so, Alicia." Isara hadn't been seen for the entire time they'd been here, by now a few, long, painful hours. She was possibly still alive, buried underneath a rubble pile.

More likely, though, she was dead.

He shook his head to fling off the horrible thought. "Who called in the barrage, anyways?"

His second in command couldn't offer anything more than a shrug. "A reconnaissance team spotted some of the Imperials patrolling the area and thought that they had occupied the town."

Welkin wrinkled his brow in confusion, and turned slightly closer to Alicia. "When did we start patrolling? That's the job of the regulars – who still aren't here yet, might I add."

She could only shrug again, numb with shock and pain. "I don't know. But I think it has something to do with the attack that Charles told us, when we gave Isara to Lieutenant Karst's care."

Welkin nodded. Men in Gallian uniform, armed with Imperial weapons, assaulting the town's civilians without provocation? The story had been so irregular that he'd begun to write a report to send to the higher-ups, but he'd only been half done before he had had to leave, needing to touch base with Squad 7 once more. Charles had promised him that they'd finish when he returned.

Charles was able to help him no longer. His still form rested underneath a shroud in the town square.

They'd been so close to Lia already, simply coming to meet up with Isara and hopefully take her back to their encampment on Marberry beach. Instead, they'd received an order to head to Lia – and find "a surviving Imperial force", most likely the same force they'd met with earlier.

Information swirled and clashed, between what Welkin and Alicia knew, what the commanders knew, what the Imperials that they'd entrusted with Isara knew, and what the populace knew. In the end though, from their point of view the entire situation had devolved into one deformed mass, the entire fiasco unclear and clouded.

"Sir!" Brigitte Stark, otherwise known as Rosie by the flaming red of her hair, marched up to the Edelweiss. Her rifle was slung over her shoulder, as she held something in her arms.

"What is it, Corporal Stark?" Welkin asked tiredly.

"It looks like the soldiers who called in the barrage had a point. We just unearthed this from the spokesman's house." She offered up the object in her hands.

It was an Imperial helmet.

Welkin slowly reached out for the armor, taking the charred and dented object into his own arms – Rosie stepped back, slumping as she began to feel the weight of the crisis on her shoulders as well. Numbly, he wiped some grime away from the inside of the helmet – the faceplate had been lost somewhere along the way – revealing a line of stamped text.

_Lance Corporal 29-4 Celestyn Faas Jacelern._

He passed the helmet to Alicia, letting her take in the bad news as well. After she'd swallowed the information as well, they looked at each other significantly.

Isara was dead, no doubt. She'd been left with Celes as her doctor when they'd left – and if Celes had died in the shelling, in his heavy Imperial armor, there was no way Isara could have survived either.

As he swallowed this huge bite of information, he noted in a detached fashion that they had another problem, though. Could they truly say that they'd trusted Isara to the hands of an Imperial?

At length, Welkin made his decision. "Good work, Rosie."

That was all his psyche could take though, with the knowledge of his sister's death, a fact he could not share just yet. It felt like the world was opening up beneath his feet, dropping him into a cesspool of tragedy. War was hell, and with that thought he threw the helmet into the ground with a shout. "DAMN IT!"

The scream turned the dozen visible heads of Squad 7 towards the sight of their cracking commander, and undoubtedly the rest stopped their work in shock. Hurriedly, Alicia hurried him into the Edelweiss proper, shielding him from the worried gazes of his subordinates.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur:

Alicia talked with a Sergeant James Rooney, who stuttered over his report of calling in a barrage after seeing Imperials enter the village, then being ambushed by a second group. He seemed shaky, but it was all attributable to stress and trauma, something that they were all under. Perhaps he had been wrong in ordering artillery so hastily, but they couldn't condemn him for it –

They stopped digging around the spokesman's house after they found a shred of Isara's shawl, recognizing the pattern immediately. There was no doubt that she was dead now. The Darcsen Nadine offered up the scrap to Welkin from her crouched position sadly, face speaking volumes about her feelings of loss –

Largo and Rosie talked with a few of the survivors, who numbered in the few dozen. Apparently, yes, there had been Imperials in town. When confronted with why, though, and asked why they hadn't fought back, the townspeople fell silent and turned away, shunning their militia uniforms. Welkin absently wondered if it was time for him to inform the rest of Squad 7 of the earlier attack, but in the end, decided against it once more. It would only fracture the militia more, something that they couldn't afford –

Alicia acted as Welkin's voice again, organizing a mass funeral for all those killed in the attack. Tearfully, Squad 7 helped the survivors began to dig the graves –

And then it was already the funeral proper as the sun set. No one could keep a straight face, not even the most hardened of them, as Rosie sang a song of goodwill, her gift to Isara that the Darcsen would never actually hear. The Darcsen shawls of the dead were propped up as grave markers, covering the new graveyard in a pattern of color, acting as a last remembrance to the dead. There were less graves than markers; not all of the dead had been found, including Isara –

And the army, almost a week late by now, finally rolled in force, throwing their weight around and taking credit for everything. They missed the looks of disgust that Alicia sent them. "If they'd been here when Isara got hit… we never would have had to go find a doctor. Never would have met the Imperials, never would have had to leave Isara… and she wouldn't have died…" Welkin had nothing to say on the situation. It was just a string of bad events, one after the other –

They returned to the Marberry encampment with the survivors, who were now little more than homeless refugees. The people, almost all Darcsens, took care to isolate themselves away from the militiamen, setting up their sleeping quarters far away from the soldiers' and giving them dark looks whenever they did pass near. Many of the members of Squad 7 flinched at the obvious animosity, but left them alone, knowing the duress that the refugees must have been undergoing after having their homes and families shelled into oblivion. Welkin and Alicia wanted to break the real news, but all talk of Darcsens led straight back to Isara, and that was a subject that they couldn't touch. In the end, the subject dropped from their minds entirely, as personal grief took them over –

A few days later, Squad 7 returned to base, delivering the survivors into the capital to be dispersed anew into other towns and cities as new homes. Welkin finished the report to the militia commander, Captain Varrot. But before he turned it in, undoubtedly springing countless investigations, Welkin uncovered a photo that had been taken of Squad 7 some time earlier and put it somewhere in the barracks where they could all see it, as a reminder to stick together despite the losses. The entirety of Squad 7 was posed in front of or on top of the Edelweiss, smiling brightly, all ready to fight for Gallia, captured in sepia tones.

In the middle of them all, Isara stood proudly in front of her handiwork, smiling, unaware of her ultimate fate.

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Colonel Nicholas calmly flicked a bit of ash of the end of his cigarette, before bringing it back to his thin lips. His solid frame rested in an imposing fashion behind an impressive wooden desk, in a relatively opulent office – silver hair matched his beard and mustache, marking him as one of Gallia's aristocratic officers in the regular army. Rooney's knees were practically shaking as he stood in front of the powerful figure, knowingly full well what the man could do to him.

"You've done good work, Rooney," he drawled, sounding almost bored. "You managed to clean up your mess a little bit in the end. Creative use of artillery."

Rooney saluted and narrowly avoided decapitating himself with his own hand. "Sir! Thank you sir!"

"Unfortunately, you never did hunt down those Imperials." Although the Colonel's expression never changed from boredom, a predatory tone crept into his voice.

"No sir! They had overwhelming numbers, sir!"

The Colonel laughed, a humorless bark. "I don't truly care about a bunch of Imperials running around. Actually, I'd prefer them to survive as long as possible. We haven't caught them yet either. Some of our army patrols are speculating that they've already escaped – no mean feat. That might also have to do with the fact that several of them disappeared completely." He didn't sound like he cared, however. "Impressive."

Rooney stayed silent, unaware as to what the Colonel was getting at.

"Back on topic. You only ever managed to cleanse one village, Rooney. You did a good enough job, but it was still nothing like the five you promised me that you could get in the delay I made."

He tried to salute again – realized his hand was already at his brow, and froze instead. "The first village somehow was ready for us, sir! They ambushed us as we attacked, and went so far as to use themselves as bait, sir!"

He raised bushy grey eyebrow. "Oh, really? That is interesting." He took a pull from the cigarette, letting a stream of smoke blow out into the air. "However, there were survivors. Not many, mind you, but still, there were. They aren't talking yet, but news might get out. We'll silence them before they get settled into their new homes and jobs. At least that Welkin Gunther was so kind as to go through the official channels, so we have all the paperwork." The man gruffly tapped a folder on his desk – full of documents, it looked important to Rooney's eyes. It probably was, too.

"In any case, I guess I can forgive you this time. The situation is still salvageable – but it's going to take me a lot of resources to clean up these survivors. You won't be participating in that, though – I'm going to get you transferred into the intelligence department. There's a job I want you to do…"

"Sir, I don't know, I think I'd rather stay in the militia – " he began to protest.

"You _are_ going in intelligence. Did you not say you were mine to command when I gave you this marvelous opportunity earlier?"

Rooney pulled a shaky nod. "And I thank you, sir, but after these experiences, these complications, I don't think I'm cut out any longer – "

"Nonsense. You will be transferred in intelligence as a… promotion… for your deeds in encountering an Imperial remnant. After all, your 'experiences' should make you even more suitable for this job. Consider it my way of saying thank you."

The Darcsen hunter saluted again, awkwardly jerking his hand back and forth. "Sir!"

The colonel smiled, a cat in cream. "That's a good Darcsen hunter. Really, the Empire has the right idea about those pigs." He coughed. "Excuse me. Now, we'll be sending you to the Federation for this…"

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**This entire blurb has the feeling of a "really dead montage", but… we all know what's actually going to happen.**

**I really am rushing through here – I want to return to my main characters, damn it! :p**

**But just what arse-pull am I going to use to bring them back to life after they even went as far as finding remnants of their clothing?**


	25. Humanity

**Ominae: Ask, and ye shall receive…**

**Cloner4000: Yeah, they really got the short end of the stick.**

**THEY LIVE! And now for some blatant shipping.**

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_Unknown number of hours after shelling_

Celes decided that his position was not an enviable one, stuck underneath countless amounts of wood and stone. Still, it was better than being dead.

The view wasn't all that bad, though. At the moment, his helmet was stuck, locking his eyes on Isara's unconscious face. While not exactly useful to getting out of the rubble, it was at least a restful place to lay his eyes. His body ached all over, undoubtedly from the shell blast – he wondered if he had shrapnel in his back.

Still, he decided he could die peacefully enough if that face was the last thing he saw.

He wiggled an arm, trying to reach his helmet to free himself. Stones shifted slightly – one particularly stiff specimen took an extremely large amount of force to shift just enough to get free. A little more wiggling and he was able to work his hand to his neck, unbuckling his helmet. By curling up, he was able to remove his head from his helmet, which was apparently pinned between a rock and… a hard place; Celes couldn't tell exactly what.

An hour's effort later, he'd managed to shift enough rubble so that he could see just how they'd survived. There was a tiny hollow in the rubble, large enough for two people smashed together to reside. A miniscule breeze of fresh air came through – well, at least they weren't going to suffocate in a few minutes. A few more hours, though, might still be enough.

They had to get out of here, soon.

Isara stirred beneath him, and he wanted to smash his head against a rock with irritation. They were in an extremely awkward position right now, and if she moved just like _that_, then she rubbed against him like _that_, and even with the armor between them it wasn't exactly helping him concentrate –

To distract himself, he pulled at a timber, not actually expecting it to move. It didn't, but dust descended in droves. Oops. Bad idea. Still moving as slowly as possible, he tried to move to the side of the girl underneath him.

Instead, he lost his balance. His hand came screaming down to steady himself on the exposed floor right beside Isara's face.

WHUNK. The sound was deafening and resonant in the hollow of space that they had.

Her eyes snapped open, and she rolled upwards to face him. For a moment, he thought she was going to wrench him again. But then she smiled sadly, as if to say "well, what now" and "thank you" at the same time.

It was a far cry from her first deliriously violent moments after her operation. Celes decided he liked the change.

"We're trapped inside the ruins of Charles's house," he said softly. Absently, he wondered why he was bothering – it wasn't as if speaking loudly was going to cause the timbers to collapse on them – but something about the situation just seemed to warrant a delicate attitude. Maybe it had something to do with how close his face was to hers, how deep her eyes seemed to be, how it would only take a few inches of movement to –

Cut.

She nodded. "How long do you think it will take for them to dig us out?" she said optimistically. Her breath washed over him – he was again reminded of steel and machinery, all underlaid with a feminine tone –

Celes sighed, both in resignation and to get the scent of her away from him. "To tell the truth, Isara, I don't think anyone will reach us in time."

He was close enough to see her pupils dilate in surprise. "Why not?" she whispered, taken aback.

"There was an attack on this village a little while ago." He wondered if his one visible eye was giving away the secret already.

Her face darkened with confusion as her mind churned – it was an endearing sight. "So they greet you with open arms after you shot them?" she asked, confused. He smiled, glad that she knew him well enough to not automatically condemn him, but to doubt.

"They were Gallians. It seems Darcsens aren't just hated in the Empire." A tinge of sarcasm crept into his voice despite his best efforts as he thought of his own half-heritage. Oh, the troubles that that had almost caused for him. He briefly recalled the moment when Lieutenant Karst had forced him to take it off, before calmly accepting him without a word of complaint, a moment that had cemented his loyalty for good.

She gasped. "I… I know that," she admitted with a sad, ironic smile, "but they had the gall to just… massacre them? Wouldn't anyone notice?"

"Not if they carried Imperial arms, and made sure to leave no survivors." His voice was cutting and bitter, his disgust clear.

For a long moment, she looked at him – simply looked at him. Briefly, Celes considered ducking his head back into the helmet stuck in midair to hide his face, but he was riveted in place. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it, unable to coalesce his thoughts, much less voice them. She _was_ distracting.

"And what does that have to do with you?" she finally asked in a quavering whisper.

Now he was the one struck dumb, and he turned his head to the side as far as he could to avoid those eyes like wells, eyes he could fall into forever and never care. "… I suppose if you wanted to be cynical, I'd say that we, as a shattered unit, needed every ally we could get to escape."

"… somehow, I don't think that's the real reason." She cut straight through his excuse to the core of the matter, trying to expose his soul underneath. It was an uncomfortable notion.

Celes let out a long breath. Why was his heart beating so fast? A small part of his mind said to do something to break this haze that was descending over his head – but it wasn't like the haze of rage that he'd seen her with earlier when she'd insulted his craft but a haze of pure emotion and want.

"… I couldn't just watch them die. Of course, it looks like they managed to finish the job anyways," he added, shifting slightly to point at their surroundings.

"They were Darcsens," she said sarcastically. "Stinky pigs, dark hairs. And you, _Imperial_," she stung, "supposedly have no care for them. What gives?"

Celes made up his mind. Although he didn't trust himself enough to open his eyes, turned his head back to face her for his own retort. "They were human."

She had no scathing remark to shoot down his idealism – Celes cursed inwardly. Had that been the wrong thing to say?

Isara shifted underneath him; he winced and turned away; she moved _closer_ –

"You really are a kind person at heart, Celes," Isara's kind voice whispered into his ear –

The scent of oils engulfed him as a pair of lips grazed against his cheek, lingering there just long enough for him to feel their softness. "Thank you."

Every sense Celes had burst into feeling. All of his bodily functions screamed at him to do something, to take this woman underneath his form.

He axed all connection he had with himself, and for a time, floated – somewhere. A whole minute must have passed before he let himself touch back down to earth. His eyes opened –

Isara was staring at him, expression shattered with disappointment, a sight that tore at his heartstrings. Slowly, he let the smile that he had been holding back fill his face, and felt it grow as she mirrored him. "You're welcome," he started –

But a thought tore away his happiness before it blossomed fully. "Now, how are we going to get out of here?"

Her own face flattened back into business. "Punch the floor again."

"Eh?"

"Do it."

Quizzically, he raised an armored fist. Spurred on by Isara's nod, he brought it down against the floor.

WHUNK. The same sound as before – and most interestingly, the floor cracked and gave way inward about an inch. He raised his uncovered eyebrow, asking a silent question.

"I examined this place while you were away." She shrugged as best as while pinned along the ground. "It happens when you move furniture in a room." A half embarrassed smile flitted across her face.

Celes twisted his mouth in confusion. "Okay, but just what?"

"There's space underneath the floor, probably a tunnel here. If I'm not mistaken, it should lead to some distance away from the village."

"Why would there be a tunnel underneath a house?"

"This is a _Darcsen_ town, Celes," she said, as if lecturing him. "We have to be ready for a lot of things."

Oops. He felt his face flush. To recover, he raised a fist again. "Care to help?" he asked lightly.

She nodded. A hand snaked down her body – by proximity, his body as well, much to his chagrin – and snatched up a wrench. Celes almost winced, but caught himself just in time. Let her think that he couldn't feel her hand scrambling across the surface of his armor, and hopefully he would come out of this mess alive.

A second wrench later, the two of them were smashing at the floorboards towards freedom.

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**Gratuitous shipping is gratuitous. Next up… just how was the trip? And why aren't they able to touch base with Squad 7? We already know that they went back thinking of her canonical death…**


	26. Tunnel Tales

**SovietSniper92: Remember that Celes is half-Darcsen… with a strange medical condition to reveal that fact. Note that I consider half-Darcsens to be not obviously so – it's just his own particular eye that awkwardly reveals this fact.**

**And now they escape! A long period of close contact lets me write some fun character interaction.**

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_Bonk_.

Celes hit his head on the tunnel roof for the twentieth time. A small shower of earth fell into his hair, glazing the black and white strands with brown.

With a groan, he pulled himself another length forward. Stride.

Muscles screamed in pain within his legs and arms – meanwhile, his back and hips creaked with earlier injuries. It seemed that his decision to cover Isara had been the right one, given the amount of agony he was in; she probably would have been reduced to so much meat.

Stride. The idea made him shudder.

Upon breaking enough of the floor, they'd rolled through/into the created gap a few feet down– and not a moment too soon. The moment Isara had bounced on top of his own fallen body, the rest of the rubble imitated their move over their originally occupied position. Celes wondered if he should have retrieved his helmet – too late now.

Now they crawled through the tunnel on hands and knees, lit by the sickly blue light of a ragnite rod from Celes's pack, wedged between his shoulder and chest plate so that his arms were free to move. He led, a fact more attributable to the way he'd fallen ahead of Isara than any sense of chivalry. Isara did a sort of hopping movement to avoid putting too much stress on her wounded side, per his recommendations. He was not in any position to conduct a second surgery.

"Celes?" she said softly.

Stride. Even as he pulled himself another length forward, Celes answered. "Isara? What is it?"

"… do you hate me?"

The question was so unexpectedly, Celes stopped in mid-stride. "What? Why –"

Marberry.

The tank that smashed through their lines, butchering his unit –

Blood and broken bodies of teammates all around –

No way to save them all –

Celes squeezed his eyes shut. "I…"

Deep blue eyes –

The scent of oils and steel –

Lips and soft breath upon his cheek –

He resolutely took another stride forward. "I don't believe I'm in any situation to answer that question," he stalled.

"Celes, please." Her voice was yearning, insistent, even as he heard her follow behind him. "I know about Marberry beach and how I pilot the Edelweiss and so many of you died and I just thought that you might think that I –"

"Please stop babbling, it doesn't suit you." Stride. "Look… that was then. This is now."

"Hate springs from memories past," she quoted. "I don't want to turn to you and see –"

Stride. "That was on a battlefield, Isara," he quoted back, thinking of the Lieutenant. "We are not responsible for our actions there."

"Even the massacre of civilians?" she riposted.

Stride. Stride. Stride. He stayed silent, preparing a tirade to defend his position. "Isara, let me tell you this. _I am not the entire Imperial army._ Now stop treating me like one. I'm an intelligent man, rational and able to think for myself." Stride. "I have morals that I will not break, not even on the battlefield."

Stride. "I'm sorry. That was… insensitive of me." Celes could feel her apologetic smile behind him. "You've already proved that you're a better person than that."

"I should hope so." Stride. "Is it the armor that makes you think that way?"

"Hmm?

"The sight of our armor, that encloses us fully and turns us from human beings into mindless killing machines." Stride.

"… now that you mention it… maybe it is."

Stride. "The best way to desensitize war. You're not shooting living, breathing men – and women," he added, thinking of Gallia's militia, "you're destroying uniforms. Sometimes I wonder how war would be fought if uniforms didn't exist." Stride.

"It'd be confusing. How could you possibly shoot at someone without knowing their allegiance?"

Stride. "Exactly. Perhaps there wouldn't be any war at all, and we'd all go back home, throw away our weapons, open businesses, and only engage in economic and philosophical battle." Stride. "I'd enjoy that."

Stride. Eventually, Isara let out a small giggle at his ridiculously idealistic statement. He joined her, enjoying the sounds of them at peace, even as they crawled for their lives. Str-

_Bonk_.

"Valkyrur," he cursed – and proceeded to get a mouthful of soil.

The giggles behind him took a more mischievous tone, and after he had spat out the unwelcomed material, he couldn't help but join in yet again, laughing at himself, her, the situation they were in, everything.

Some part of him wanted to attribute the laughter to bad air in the tunnel, bad air that might suffocate them and leave them as two corpses never to be found.

His mind dizzy and confused, Celes wondered if he truly cared.

Stride. Stride. Stride.

Behind him, he heard a distinctly unpleasant but wordless exclamation behind him. It clashed with the mood created earlier, but he decided not to probe. Stride. Isara didn't match his move forward. He stopped, and turned as best as possible in the cramped quarters.

"What's wrong, Isara?

"… this is embarrassing," she let out after a long silence.

"What is it?" A thunderbolt of reason struck him. "Valkyrur, your wound hasn't reopened, has it?! Damn, I've been pushing forward, how could I have forgotten –"

"No, it's not that…" She sounded extremely uncomfortable, more so than she ever had before.

"Well then, what is it?" he asked, shaking off the effects of the first shock, slightly relieved but also completely bemused,

"… I have to go to the bathroom."

A second thunderbolt of realization hit him. The effects from this one did not go away.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"… well, that is embarrassing," Celes finally admitted.

"You did leave me without directions to a toilet, after all."

"Nothing in, nothing out," he riposted. "You wouldn't have needed to go at all any time this morning until after you ate; you hadn't eaten anything while asleep – obviously – and anything that you already had… well, let's just say it must have been evacuated earlier. Most likely when you were shot."

There was a silence, most likely an indignant one. "Are you implying –"

"Your medic probably handled that personally, because, no, I did not have to clean that mess up." An edge of silliness crept back into his voice as he contemplated the situation. He'd watched his unit get blown to pieces, saved a Darcsen town, undertaken life-saving surgery, gotten shelled, and now he was busy dancing around the subject of excrement?

To put them on equal footing, Isara asked, "What about you? Why aren't you… feeling the need?"

"I'm a male. I have a larger set of bowels than you," he hypothesized, "and thus have more space."

"… more obscure medical knowledge?" she jibed.

"Okay, I was talking out of my rear end there. But no, I don't feel anything right now. Eh."

Silence.

"Look," he offered, "I'll leave you the light –"

"Why would _I_ have the light?" she asked quizzically.

"Would you rather make a mess of yourself?" he parried.

Silence – meant assent. Celes fumbled blindly with his bag strap, checking his ever-present duffel for the first time since the shelling – there hadn't been a relevant occasion. With a relieved sigh, he found that it was still intact, if a bit more beaten up than usual.

A swift rummaging later, he blindly offered a roll of tissue paper behind him. "Here…" and when she took it, he unjammed the glowing ragnite wand from his armor and swung it back as well, "…and here. I'll go forward a few lengths, slip this band of cloth over my good eye, and wait. Alright?"

"… alright." Her voice was small. Was it embarrassment at being in this sort of situation? Or was it fear?

"Look, if you're worried about the, er, sounds, I'll sing something, okay?" he offered.

"You can sing?"

"Poorly. But loudly."

Isara giggled behind him, a sound Celes found he enjoyed a lot. "Thanks, Celes."

""Well… I'll be off then." Stride. Stride. Stride. Stride. The blue light gradually disappeared around him into black darkness, although if he looked back, he could see her face framed with light, light that ceased to look weak and instead made her look like a – Valkyrur descended, although the paradox of a Darcsen being a Valkyrur almost made him laugh again. That was not only ridiculously, but ideologically – and biologically – impossible.

It was still a breathtaking sight, though.

The moment she began to fumble with her skirt, though – she was still wearing his "Gallian" jacket, a sight that he found amusing and touching at the same time – he turned around, and, ever a man of his word, dropped his obscuring band of cloth over the other eye, blocking his vision.

Admittedly, he could still see a little bit through the gauze, but it was all indistinct shadows. Again making sure that his eyes were averted, he rolled to a half-sitting position, took in a deep breath – and sang.

It was a wordless melody, partly because he didn't trust himself to fumble over words while curled up so painfully, partly because he didn't trust accidentally conveying a hidden message. So he made his mouth into an instrument, bending and sliding the pitch up and down the scales, stealing motifs and lines from various pieces he had heard earlier – folk songs and shanties from his childhood, classic pieces he'd heard on the radio at the Academy, patriotic anthems that had been broadcasted on the camp speakers daily – although he made up more than a few on the spot.

His breaths were a bit restrained, given his half-bent position and the armor – bent and improperly balanced – dragging his muscles down. He hadn't had the opportunity to exercise this skill in a while, almost months, so more than once, he winced at a particularly egregious crackle or bit of dissonance until his mind changed keys.

It was still a beautiful thing to hear.

Sometime a few minutes later, he was pulling from some tune he'd known since childhood, he heard a light, lilting tone coming from behind him – with words.

Abruptly, he cut off, spinning around, only then remembering that he wasn't supposed to be looking –

"I'm done," she said, interrupting his train of thought. If he could see her, he imagined her face crinkled with confusion, shadows of blue jumping around his obscured vision as she pulled herself back into a crawling position. "But might I ask where you heard _that_ particular song?"

He thought on that, wracking his brains and pillaging his memories for the exact time he had learned that, but he couldn't give her an answer. "… I'm not really sure."

"That's a Darcsen lullaby." Brow knit together with concentration, she pulled herself a length forward, putting herself that much closer to him. "Well, I know that you're not some fanatical racist," she said, softening the interrogation, "but still, it isn't something I'd expect someone like you to have come across."

Celes wiggled his eyeband up to its normal position, leaving his physical secret, the left blue-black eye that failed to match with his other brown one, covered. Wistfully, he wondered just why he had to get struck with such a strange ailment – from his studies at the Vaclav, the odds of having different colored eyes was somewhere in the range of winning the lottery while becoming the Emperor on the same day. It just so happened that this condition showed a background that meant hardship – even death – in the Empire.

He thought about his father, the Darcsen who conceived him and left without ever knowing he had a son, and then thought about the woman in front of him, weighing the value of story – the secret. Even a dozen mental jumps later, he still couldn't think where he had heard that song.

"… I still don't really know," he repeated. He would keep his heritage underneath the lid of secrecy for now – opening that particular can of worms wouldn't help at all right now, and he wasn't sure he was comfortable leaving the information with her. "Come on," he said, changing the subject, pulling himself back into a forward crawling position. "Let's get going."

There was only the noise of her moving forward once again, now only a single length away from him. She shifted behind him – seeing the light dance on the earth walls around him, he reached back and took the light once more, jamming it into its previous position to light the way.

Stride. Stride. Stride.

Minutes passed as they crawled in silence, but as time passed, the silence ceased to be stifling or awkward – a comfortable silence. She didn't pursue his strange knowledge of a song that he never should have heard, and he didn't ask why she was interested, although he could imagine why. Obviously a fullblood Darcsen herself, it was a natural curiosity to have, just as someone from a certain town might ask an acquaintance's experiences of a visit of that town – especially if said acquaintance wasn't supposed to associate with that town at all.

He winced. Bad analogy – the pain was getting to him. Closing his eyes and shaking his head to purge the confusing idea, he reached forward again – touching soil in front of him where there should have been air.

Celes jerked. Dead end? No; the tunnel was sloping up!

He smiled, and communicated the information. "I think we're finally getting out of here. I wonder – just how far have we gotten?"

"Pretty far?" she offered.

The medical student made a face that she couldn't see. "That's not very helpful."

"… keep moving, silly. I want to see sky again."

Stride. Stride. Their pace increased as the tunnel slowly widened – obviously, someone had worked on it from this end. Stride. His pain in his back and legs went away at the thought of finally getting out of this claustrophobic place, and he increased his pace again.

There was an abrupt left turn in the tunnel – and then a mere two strides later, a turn back to the right to return to the original heading.

And after that turn was a wooden panel of a door, maybe a few feet square, outlined by afternoon sunlight. They'd been underground for quite a while, then.

More importantly, though, that was an exit. A minute later, they were side by side, and right against the door.

A lock hung off of it, almost mocking them.

Celes cursed, but Isara was already reaching for her small pouch of knick-knacks. Watching with curiosity, a notion came to him.

"… please say you know how to pick a lock."

She only produced the appropriate tools. "When you're a mechanic, sometimes you have to get at things that people feel obligated to lock." Shrugging, she got to work. "Give me some light here."

Celes shifted to point the ragnite light at the lock at an angle that let her see her work without her hands casting shadows all over it. Isara quietly nodded in satisfaction, metal scraping and clicking.

A few minutes later, the lock succumbed to her clever hands. Eyes alight with eagerness, she threw herself through, or rather tried to; her light body bounced off of the wood like a thrown ball.

Celes had to chuckle a bit at her dismayed expression. "I'll guess that the door hasn't been used in a while," he speculated.

"… probably," she agreed, still laid out on the soil.

"It'll probably take a bit of force…" Turning to put his legs underneath him, Celes braced himself against the wall of the tunnel and kicked at the surface, armor adding additional inertia to his strike.

SMASH. It was a solid hit, but the door didn't budge; instead, his foot went straight through the material. Now his face was the one twisted with dismay, as he soon realized that he was now well and truly stuck.

He heard giggling behind him. "Well, I didn't expect _that _either!" he complained in a whiny, child-like voice. Dropping back to a more normal and exasperated tone, he added, "Now are you going to help me?"

Still laughing, Isara moved back up to him, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled. With a further crack of wood, they tumbled back, Isara ending on top of him. For just a moment, he felt a ridiculous urge to _do _something, to wrap his arms around her and enjoy the moment of intimacy –

The spell broke when unconsciously he shifted a leg, a leg that felt weighed down with a huge amount of weight. "Oh, come on!" he groaned as the Darcsen girl rolled off him, _still_ laughing. Admittedly, he noted, the situation was quite amusing – he couldn't blame her.

The good news was that door had broken away, revealing a second hillside. It seemed that the exit had come out in a small valley.

The bad news was that the door was still stuck to his leg. Soil must have settled outside, preventing the door from swinging outward – but not inside the tunnel, allowing the door to come inward.

Ignoring it, their banter gradually floated out into the air as they dragged themselves into the outside – especially dragging with Celes, as he had to fit a huge, heavy, awkwardly shaped object attached to him through the hole that it had once occupied – laying down on the cool grass underneath the sun.

He was glad to be alive.

No – he was glad _they_ were alive.

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**Next up: Contact with others, and just why they never get to call back…**

**This was a long piece of work, hence the delay. Review me for quick response, else I'll force you to wait… although I'll be writing regardless. :3**


	27. Chapter 6: Capture

**The story progresses… not much more to say.**

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The sun had already begun to set, and Celes was still panting with exertion as he swung Isara's heaviest wrench at the wooden panel stuck around his calf.

They'd crawled into the shade of a hill after their moment of relief, before setting to work on Celes's oversized impediment. Originally, they'd tried using a blade, but a few seconds later it was clear that the wood had aged and shrunken enough to make chopping it off a laughable proposition. Thinking of how Celes had managed to kick _through_ the barrier with only a leg, they decided that it might easily succumb to further blunt abuse.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Already, Celes had shucked off every single other piece of armor that he could, neatly stacking the pieces out of habit. The one piece that was stuck, a greave, needed to be unbuckled from the inside first – and there was no way he could reach it with the wood in his way. Isara's attempts at going from the other side had been stymied by the closed bottom of the armor plate. She watched as sweat stained his fatigues as he braced the panel against a large stone that she'd brought, and swung yet again with the wrench.

_Crack_. It jumped – along with his leg – but there was no appreciable damage.

"You'd think that after smashing through a floor and a door, we'd be able to detach this thing easily enough," she bantered, wiping sweat from her brow with a bandage from Celes's bag. Her searches for her some cloth of her own had been futile, so eventually he, ever the gentleman, had offered her one. Some part of her wondered if it was the lady who was supposed to offer the knight a scarf, but the squirming in her stomach at that thought led her to suppress that thought.

Celes grunted in response, and swung again. "I think the world's wood supply is angry at us," he joked back. "They're tired of being smacked around."

She giggled, and eyed him impishly, but knew the effect was spoiled by her sincere smile. She put down her own tool on the grass – the next largest wrench – and wrung out the wet bandage. Thinking she ought to help him out – he was the one doing most of the labor, after all – she leaned over and reached for his headband.

His free hand unconsciously shot out to intercept it, bare skin grasping her gloved fingers painfully hard. Gasping, she froze, eyes wide with surprise. "Celes?"

The Imperial cursed, quickly releasing her hand. "I – nothing." His fingers quickly swept across the cloth, so soaked as to leave wetness across the digits at the ephemeral touch, before he realized what he was doing and cursed again, dropping his hand to grasp the metal tool once more and swinging in an attempt to divert the subject.

She tilted her head, thinking of his sensitivity about the scarf, feeling gravity maintain a hold on her soaked-hair. "Grenade?" she asked skeptically.

"Let's just say I got lucky," he grumbled, adjusting his grip again. The band was of little use in its current state, sweat freely dripping straight through. The irritation must have been massive, but he seemed to be doing his best to ignore it.

Lucky to have gotten away with such a clean wound? Isara thought of the blue fireball and cloud of shrapnel created by a Gallian grenade, and failed to see how there was any way that it could only damage the eye. Surely splinters would have made some further marks, or fire would have burned into his face.

She took in a deep breath, pulling herself upright on her knees, doing her best to tower above his sitting form. "Look, Celes, you're doing nothing more than be a pain to both yourself and me. A scar is nothing to be ashamed of. Take a look at me," she said while waving to her own wound – instantly flushing with embarrassment as she realized what else was near her shoulder, but continuing her tirade regardless. "I'll wear this thing for the rest of my life. I won't be prideful of it, I won't be ashamed of it. Now will you _please_ stop acting like such a baby – and…" Failing to finish her sentence, she lunged towards him again, fingers grasping.

He dodged awkwardly, not quite able to get out of range. As she overbalanced purposefully in her lunge, he pulled his encumbered leg with him; the wooden panel swept her off her perch, sending her flying on top of him.

In a detached manner, she noted that she was beginning to develop a habit of doing this, and promised to herself to avoid getting near him in the future.

Too late for now – she was crushed into his chest, hand completely missing its target, coming to settle on the arm he'd hastily thrown between them in self defense, still clasping the wrench. As she scowled into his face, his eye swiveled around, widening with some sort of realization. Right now, though, she was going to get that band off of his head no matter what –

"Smash my head with the wrench, _now_," he suddenly murmured intensely. For a moment, she was confused, wondering just what kind of sadist he was to ask for _that_.

Then she tracked her gaze and saw a Gallian soldier crouching on the hill crest a few meters above them, rifle pointed towards them both, aiming but obviously hesitating to act.

In an instant, she understood, grabbing his wrench-laden hand. Briefly, he pretended to struggle – the object waved back and forth – before his hands suddenly flew away from the tool. Her own hand snatched the wrench out of midair, and swung wildly, clipping his brow lightly. In an exaggerated style, he fell limply, eyes rolling back and limbs twitching.

For a moment, she crouched atop his form, and then the soldier was all around her, hastily yanking her away from Celes's body. The solder's rifle tipped dangerously towards Celes's face – Isara lunged towards it, feigning a stumble, and the man's soldier training kicked in, making him safely raise the weapon into the air.

He was shouting placations, words of safety – "Careful, sweetie, what were ya thinking, did he hurt ya?" – as they both withdrew a meter or so away. A few confused seconds passed as Isara did her best to pretend to be a flustered militiawoman, disguising worried glances at Celes's apparently unconscious form as death glares.

Eventually, the soldier – a kind faced Gallian brown-haired man in his forties, if she was any judge – was able to assemble some coherent words. "Damn, girl, what you thinkin'? Jumpin' an Imp wit' yo' bare hands? They be dangerous, ya know!" His voice was in a drawn out accent, a rural dialect; his insignia showed that he was a private from the Gallian Army, the regulars as opposed to the militia.

They'd been late, but popping up now was extraordinarily inconvenient.

His rifle moved; anxiously, she watched it return to an at-ease position across his body. Don't let him shoot Celes. That was key.

Suddenly, she wondered why she cared. At the end of the day, Celes was still an Imperial. She could let this soldier execute him where he lay, and return home to Welkin and Squad 7 in record time.

But if she did that, she was no worse than the original Darcsen of yore, who had greedily only thought of himself until holy Valkyria had rose up to defeat him. Now she was in the same position as Darcsen.

This man had sacrificed a great deal for her. He'd saved her from the brink of death, braved the potential condemnation of her brother, saved her _again_ from the shelling, and finally led her safety in the tunnel. Admittedly, the last one wasn't so much of a factor, but in the end, she had only made it that far because of him.

Darcsen had begun his greed from the ground up. She had already received many favors. If she abandoned Celes, she wouldn't be just as bad as him. She'd be worse.

How could she ever work for Darcsen liberation with that on her conscience? Resolutely, she made the opposite choice.

Continuing the farce, she looked down at her clothes. Stained brown with dirt, she angrily began to brush herself clean, although the knees of her stockings and gloves were hopeless. "I pulled myself out of that tunnel a few hours ago," she started, waving a hand towards the hole in the side of the hill. "Then, about a few minutes ago, this Imp just follows me out – after getting the door stuck on his leg – don't ask, it was a silly sight."

She was able to extract a chuckle from the soldier – good. "I lost my weapon when I escaped in the tunnel – but I thought I could handle one tired Imp encumbered with a door, especially after he took off all his armor." Adopting an expression full of chagrin, she patted at her skirt – specifically the empty holsters for the two wrenches. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go retrieve my tools now," she said arrogantly, striding back towards Celes.

The soldier stayed silent, overawed by this girl in front of him who bent over to snatch up both wrenches. He lowered his rifle his rifle and aimed –

"Just what do you think you're doing, private?" she barked at him, panicking on the inside. "We need him alive!"

Stymied, the soldier shouldered his rifle again. "Sweetie –"

"Don't call me sweetie, that's 'corporal' to you!" she snapped.

For a long moment, he stared at her chest, and it was then that Isara realized she was still in Celes's jacket. Her own uniform – complete with insignia – was buried somewhere far away.

"Yes, I know I don't have my proper uniform," she grumbled at him. "I lost it with my weapon – I was mending it when the shells hit. Damned friendly fire. Fortunately, there was an escape tunnel at hand – I escaped into it before I got turned into so much meat." Lies spouted from her mouth – she hoped enough of them were believable.

"Tunnel?" Obviously her fast talking had worked, as the older soldier looked absolutely confused – and only caught onto an insignificant part of her statements.

"Darcsen towns often have tunnels to avoid hunts, private," she lectured. "Bet you didn't know that, did you?"

"No, I didn't," he said slowly. "Sad, isn't it?"

On any other day, she might have smiled at the sympathy that he obviously had for the persecuted Darcsens. Right now, though, she had a man to save.

She tossed back her wet hair – blast, how was she going to explain that? – and imperiously looked at him from behind her nose, an admirable feat given that he had a good foot of height on her. "Well, my name is Isara Gunther, corporal of the militia's Squad 7." She made the information into a boast. "You?"

"Ralf Macarthy, private of the army's Squad 19," he offered. Ralf was still speaking slowly, mind still trying to process the new situation. Isara was in the same state, but she forced herself to act as if she knew exactly what she was doing.

She squatted down beside Celes's body. His chest rose slowly up and down, unmoving; it was a perfect farce. "Now, private, this man escaped out of a tunnel that I thought was shelled shut," she explained. "Don't you think we should interrogate him? We wouldn't want to have Imps crawling all over Gallia, would we?"

Ralf nodded. "Then let's take him back to our base –"

"No, no, that won't be necessary!" Waving her arms, she hurriedly cut off that train of thought. "Let's just drag him into –"

"I'm sorry, corporal, but if you insist that we not execute him, orders say we take them back." Ralf's face turned stoic. There was no arguing with it; Isara tried anyways, but didn't get very far.

"But –"

"No 'buts', sweetie. Orders are orders." He put his fingers into his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. Even as Isara did her best to protest, several other uniformed figures appeared on other hillsides, jogging towards the three of them.

Even as the soldiers bound Celes and called for a truck – one of them had a radio – Isara stopped trying to argue, and started thinking of how she could rescue Celes from this catastrophe.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

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**Uh oh. They're in trouble now…**


	28. Ungrateful Wretch

**Ominae: Isara will have the spotlight for now, as she works around the Gallian Army…**

**Cloner4000: For the kiss, it was meant as sort of a "formal" one. Ever been to Europe? That's my inspiration. Still… it might just be a prelude… :3 And the door and bathroom scenes within the tunnel were meant to be small scenarios to watch. Welkin getting mad the next time they see each other? Well, remember, we still have half the entire game to wait out. Let's just say that when our two protagonists reunite with Welkin, he's going to be torn between ecstasy and berserk rage…**

**SovietSniper92: Ramal… doesn't exist here. I started writing before I knew about the anime, and so obviously, I've gone too long without any sort of reference to him to try and shoehorn him in now.**

**I was going to write about the trip to the base, but decided that the scene added little to the characters or plot. Now we get to see this Gallian base…**

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Sullenly, Isara slid off the high back of the heavy truck, landing heavily onto the dirt – Gallian soil, surrounded on all sides by a company-sized base teeming with life. The eight or so soldiers that had made up the rest of Ralf's squad and the truck's guards followed her, hopping down with a confidence born from familiarity.

The ride had be quiet and awkward. The varied soldiers – although none of them nor any passing by were Darcsen, a fact that Isara didn't miss – hadn't made any small talk, perhaps bothered by the prisoner on the floor of the vehicle.

She stepped to the side and waited for the last of the soldiers to raise their rifles and cover Celes as he came down himself. He'd "recovered" from his "injury" during the half-hour ride, and widely had chosen not to move, given the ropes around his arms and hands and the number of armed men ready to fill him with bullets at a moment's notice.

Foolishly, she wanted to offer him a hand as he regarded the four-foot drop quizzically from a half sitting, half laying position. With a panel of wood _still _around his leg, there was little hope of him coming down as gracefully as any of the other soldiers, and he didn't even have a free hand to guide himself.

Her throat constricted as she watched him take the spill into the earth, rolling off the platform into the air. His body collapsed heavily, bouncing a good couple of feet away from the point of impact, before he staggered back into the same awkward position he'd spent the whole trip in, albeit more stained with dirt than before.

Absently, she realized that he'd fallen to avoid crushing his bag. Oddly enough, no one had thought to search it, perhaps thinking that there was nothing a bound and burdened man could utilize.

She hoped they were wrong.

As if united by a single mind, the soldiers silently began to walk towards the rows of semi-permanent tents that filled the base. Isara followed Ralf blindly for a few steps, but then hesitated, looking back. Celes sat there, a distinctly unamused impression on his face.

"Do you expect me to crawl, Gallians?" he growled at her – them, she corrected herself.

Ralf suddenly turned and walked rapidly next to Celes – before anyone could say a word, there was the sound of flesh on bone. Both of them recoiled away from each other, both wincing with pain. Even as the older man began to swear and hop on the spot, flapping his hand into the air, Celes barked, "Stop moving that hand!"

The Gallian froze on the spot, face starting to flush with pain. "If you'd have punched me properly, this wouldn't have happened," Celes explained. "As it is, you've broken your knuckles."

"No shi-"

"If you'll be as kind as to open my bag and untie my hands, I can treat that," Celes interrupted. He was remarkably calm for someone whose cheek was starting to purple with internal bleeding.

Ralf turned skeptically towards the rest of the spectators. Isara watched as they shifted uncomfortably, not quite knowing how to respond. He began, "I think I'll just find our me –"

"That won't be necessary." Celes smiled benevolently. "You have the guns here – I'm not going to try anything funny. And you can go ahead and search my effects. You haven't done that yet."

So much for that idea.

Slowly, the Gallians walked back, forming a rough circle around Celes and Ralf, rifles ready but not aimed. None of them moved to help either of them, though, more interested in watching than acting, fearful of committing one way or the other.

Isara took a deep breath, and stepped out from the crowd. Feeling their eyes upon her, she crouched down to Celes, putting her face on his level.

"Bag," he muttered to her. She nodded, and swung the bag off of his back into her arms. Gloved fingers worked at the clasps, and soon the container's contents were laid bare. Several large metal boxes rattled inside, as did a few smaller tubes and cartons. There were no apparent weapons, something that might have surprised Isara earlier, but after her admittedly scant experiences with him, it didn't seem like him to hide firearms within a medkit. Everything was covered with Imperial script, cosmetically different than Gallian printing but still the same language.

The superficial difference made her ponder. Outside, they looked different, but upon a meaningful reading, were they really any different?

Shaking off the errant metaphor, she began to follow Celes's guidance. "That box over there," and she cracked open a container of bandages. "Those capsules," and blue ragnaid crystals winked at her. "That case," and a few tools, including a strange long rod that seemed to serve no practical purpose, rolled free. With a gauged look, she carefully took the only knife in the box and tucked it into a slot beside the rest of the tools on her skirt; Celes shrugged helplessly.

Gear now prepared, Celes raised his bound arms and hands to her. Even as she began to pluck at the knots, he rattled off further orders to Ralf, who had by now sat down in front of him, cautiously offering Celes his injured hand braced with his good one, like a man might offer a rabid wolf a piece of meat. His face, ugly with pain and hate, was reflective of his displeasure at doing so.

When the ropes slipped free, without the slightest show of discomfort, the Imperial immediately took the Gallian regular's hand. His thumb swept across the structures – Ralf twisted his mouth in pain, and opened it as if to complain –

"Breaks there… and there…" Celes muttered. Ralf shut his mouth, but opened it again at the speed with which his healer worked.

Isara was suddenly delegated to nurse duty, cutting and rolling bandages, filling that strange rod – which turned out to be hollow – with ragnaid crystals, and, according to Celes, "comforting the patient". At that, Ralf took offense.

"What kind of coward do you think I am, Imp?" he snarled.

Celes let his face meet palm. "I'm sorry. I was just following the list in my head…"

"Stop following your damn lists – if you're going to heal me, do it and stop trying to look professional, you quack!"

Briefly, she wondered if Celes would go berserk like he had on her back in Lia, but instead of burning hot, he turned ice cold with contempt. "Hold out your hand." The ragnaid-filled tool swept over a knuckle; with a quick, familiar action, Celes clicked a toggle on the other end of the rod. Blue light bathed its end for a good ten or so seconds; Ralf gasped as the tool fused together the fractured bone and cartilage at the point of contact. A snap off; a second sweep; a second snap on; and the Gallian inhaled again.

She hadn't known that ragnaid could be applied for so long. She'd heard enough stories about the side-effects of ragnaid overexposure – overgrowth of tissues, deformed growths – perhaps it had something to do with the apparent precision his tool had?

Quickly and yet still gently, Celes snatched the cloth rolls out of Isara's hands. In the same manner, he padded areas of Ralf's hand and wrapped them in place, leaving it a sort of cradle in which it could finish healing. The rod came back over, and gave the whole arrangement a fast shower of sterilizing blue light.

Upon finishing, Celes sat back on his hands and sighed, briefly adjusting his eyeband, which had moistened with perspiration during his frenzy of activity. "You're good," he said flatly.

Ralf looked down, turning the hand up and down, flexing the wrist back and forth, weighing the bound hand.

"Well damn!" he finally burst out. "It don't hurt at all!"

Isara sighed, doing her best to hide the smile that threatened to spread across her face. Perhaps there was some hope for peace after all.

Her hopes were dashed a moment later. Instead of being grateful, Ralf stood up and kicked Celes in the ribs – hard.

Something cracked. Not Ralf's foot.

"What the hell did ya do ta me, ya Imp bastard?!" he screamed, bringing his foot down onto Celes's chest again. Still dragging a wooden panel on his leg, Celes could only slowly and painfully turn onto his side, taking the blow on his arm instead of his chest. There was a second cracking sound; Isara's remaining patience snapped like her benefactor's arm.

"What the hell do _you_ think you're doing, private?" she demanded, rushing forward and pushing him back. "This man has just done the finest job on an injury I've seen in a long time –"

She was suddenly reminded of her still healing wound as the abused tissue in her shoulder cried out in pain. Her teeth ground together – she growled at him like that. "–and then you go and _attack_ him! If you were in my squad, I would have you _court-martialed_, you –"

The pain subsided, and she almost burst into laughter at the irony. She was only here and standing because of Celes's work, and here she was mentioning it again. It was too bad she couldn't bring that up as well – it would undermine her position, and conflicted with her original story to boot.

Unable to form any more coherent words, she flailed her arms in silent rage. In front of her, Ralf smoldered back – and suddenly threw another kick towards her.

Although she'd never had direct combat experience, it wasn't as if she was helpless. A reflexive half-spin to the side meant the relatively clumsy attack only clipped her hip, pushing her a short distance away. It wasn't too short, though, and, livid with rage, her hand snatched up her wrench, whipping it around as she spun to face him once more.

_SMASH_. Isara swore she saw blood fly from a busted lip. The man tumbled back into the bare earth. He didn't stir, knocked unconscious.

Even as the watching soldiers – a crowd that had only grown with time - flew to restrain her, shouting varied exclamations, she wondered if she had just wasted every single chance she had.

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**The figurative dung continues to smash against the fan. Uh oh.**

**Coming up next: the aftermath of the "brawl" and insight into their situation….**


	29. Gallows

**Still not too much to say... the story is getting into full flow, and I don't need to muse a lot anymore.**

**Chuggachuggachuggachugga woo woo!!!**

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Isara had never enjoyed talks with brass; attempting to follow a fictional story only made it worse. Sweat rolled down her back as she stood in front of him, a folding desk between her and her interrogator.

"So let me get this straight," the sergeant said, sardonically. He was young for an officer in the army, definitely in his twenties, face framed with dark black hair and some pitiful attempts at a beard. "You escape an incident of friendly fire from a town that was reported to have Imperial activity, meet an Imperial, try to smack him around with your bare hands, and then attack a fellow soldier for attacking said Imperial later."

Timedly, she offered, "You're wrong about one thing."

"Oh?"

"I had this, sir." She touched the wrench on her skirt sheepishly, eliciting a sincere chuckle from the man.

"You're either the bravest soldier in Gallia, or the stupidest one," he laughed. But he sobered up in the following second, a complete reversal of mood, and continued, "… or an Imperial yourself." He punctuated the last bit with a snap of his fingers – a guard stepped through the tent flap. "Cover," he stated flatly – the man lowered his rifle to a ready position.

The Darcsen blanched. She hadn't expected _that_. "Sir!" she protested. "I assure you I am one of Gallia militia!"

"Oh?"

His voice was smooth and yet resigned as he continued. "I hate to tell you this,spy, but the militia left a few hours ago. They most certainly left no one behind."

She stood up a little straighter, pulling on her remaining lifelines. "Sir, I can give you my enlistment number."

"Oh? Then do tell me."

That "oh" was starting to get on her nerves.

"Seven-yew-ay-zee, one hundred forty nine, zero-eye-fourteen, em-en-see-twenty." 7UAZ-149-0I14-MNC20. She'd always wondered exactly why such a long number was necessary, but she'd memorized it easily enough. It wasn't too much of an effort for someone who had to remember the exact serial codes of engine parts daily, anyways.

He sighed, waving off the guard he'd called in – the soldier retreated back outside. "Impressive feat. Not like I can do anything with it for now, but…" Pulling out a pen and paper, he recorded the entire string – from memory. Despite herself, she was impressed. "Now, your name?"

"Corporal Isara Gunther of Squad 7, sir. My job is to maintain the Edelweiss and pilot it in combat."

For a long moment, the sergeant looked at her. "I'm sorry." He snapped his finger again. "Restrain!"

Taken by surprise, Isara did her best to hop up and dodge, but a burly guard – not the same one –came through and caught her in a bear hug before she ever had a chance, while the first guard followed, rifle now aimed unflinchingly at her chest. "What – why?" she demanded.

"You _had_ an extremely good cover story. Really, you even knew the name of the tank."

Even as she pulled futilely at the arms around her, she wrinkled her brow. "Wait, sir, how do you know?"

"The militia's Squad 7's famous in the army, for accomplishing suicidal missions after we've failed. Quite humiliating, but we try and salvage whatever credit we can." He flashed a sheepish smile. "It's good for our morale. Still, enough of us were sad when we heard a bit of gossip from today's news."

Isara could only wait for the stinger.

"The leader of Squad 7 had a Darcsen adopted sister."

"Yes, that's –"

"While I don't have anything against Darcsens in particular, I have to say that I do have something against a Darcsen who's willing to work for the Empire." The embarrassed smile from before distilled itself into a thin hard line of hatred. "I plan to reward the traitor as the traitor deserves."

"_I am Isara!_" she cried at him.

"Oh, really? No, you aren't. Welkin's little sister was killed in a friendly fire accident this morning." She froze – he offered a vindictive smile. "Bet you didn't know that little detail, did you?"

"… but… I'm right here! I escaped! Honest, sir, I swear!"

"Oh? Where are your Darcsen colors anyways?"

She had to think for a bit, missing the familiar weight of her shawl, remembering that she was wearing Celes's jacket.

"… I lost the cloth in the building. I'm telling you, we were shelled, and I escaped the building from a tunnel. Honest, sir."

"Oh, really? Unlikely. More likely, you are a spy. Look at yourself." He pointed. "You conveniently lack your squad insignia by instead wearing that jacket. More damning is that that jacket is of Imperial manufacture."

She balked, looking down. It looked like any other jacket, cut in the Gallian style.

"For further reference, the problem is in the stitching. It goes perpendicular to the pieces – it should go at a slight angle."

His observation was true, as she noticed when she looked more closely at his own uniform. Some part of her made a note to chastise Celes for handing her a damning piece of evidence against her – if she ever got out of this situation alive.

Pulling the guard's arm away from her throat to get a breath, she pulled at her last hope. "Let me talk with Welkin. He'll recognize my voice." She took in another, deep breath. "Please," she begged.

The sergeant shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Prisoners of war may not communicate with officers of the Gallian forces." He pointed a finger out the door. "Take her to the cells," he commanded.

"Please," she repeated. He shook his head.

"I don't know how you made up that plan. It was almost flawless, if a bit audacious… but this one fact damns your entire presence." He stood, pulling out and belting on a pistol from a drawer within the piece of furniture, preparing to follow her out. "Fortunately for you, we don't execute our prisoners on the spot. You'll be seen in military court the next possible opportunity in Randgriz."

Isara almost protested again, but shut it, electing to play along for now. "I can wait that long, sir. Someone will recognize me back there."

"That may be. Too bad for your friend, though."

"What about Ce – him?" Damn.

He raised an eyebrow at the slip, but said nothing. "Oh? For someone who claims to have jumped the soldier, you seem to know him rather well. The plot thickens."

"I can explain, si –"

"Don't flatter me." The cut-off was brutally abrupt – the sergeant's face was frozen in a blank expression. "Your Imperial accomplice will executed shortly, in the field, for attacking a soldier of the Gallian army."

Giving up the struggle, she instead adopted the most dignified expression she could, going for the truth. "You have the facts wrong. I attacked him, not Celes; you said as much yourself."

The sergeant shook his head. "Oh, yes, but if I pinned that crime on you, I'd have to execute you as well." The look of absolute horror on her face must have communicated her dismay. He shrugged, a sad frown creeping across his face. "Your Imperial friend has enough going against him for his death already. If I don't pin the crime on him, you die as well. Barring that you may actually be Isara, I'd rather keep you alive for now."

Isara went cold all over at the simple weighing of human life, as if it was nothing more than a currency to be exchanged. "You… bastard…" she choked out.

He shrugged. "Maybe, but it's the truth of the world." With a low bow, he apologized, "I'm sorry. Take her away!"

The burly guard pulled her away, followed closely by the armed guard and the officer. Stunned, she couldn't resist any further.

So much for a glorious rescue.

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**Shorter, but hey. To quote the unknown sergeant, "the plot thickens". Isara has the opportunity to throw Celes's life away… but she doesn't. But now the army considers them both to Imperials, and won't let them confirm the fact.**

**And now they progress towards an execution…**


	30. Eavesdropping

**Cloner4000: The main thing I wanted to get across was the "average Joe" – currently, the only antagonists had been racists. This way, we can see just how troublesome their position is.**

**In other news, I'm considering adding a second theme to the story, although **_**events**_** will still be kept canon. Namely… the survival of Selvaria.**

**Yeah, there was no good reason for her to die too. Okay, I lied, her sacrifice really did push the Empire over the moral event horizon, but I still feel that the Federation wasn't involved enough.**

**I suggest this as an underlying plotline for our main protagonist's adventures: the discovery of atomic materials. As in nukes.**

**Not only could this let Selvaria survive (it wasn't a Valkyria blowing herself up at Girlandio, it was a bomb!), but it would make a great "secret war" to fight. I was sort of thinking of it when I put Rooney into "intelligence", but wasn't sure. There's a scrappy in charge of nuclear materials… oh boy, good fun. :D**

**Comments on this would be greatly appreciated.**

**Isara now finds out just what "imprisonment" entails… that sounds inappropriate. :/**

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Isara, hands now bound together, found herself being led to a small, obviously prefabricated shack by her three guards – the burly one who still kept a grip on her shoulder, the one with the gun, and the sergeant who had condemned her. The building was in a row with five others, each marked with a roughly painted number on the door. All but one were open and unguarded – Celes, she supposed.

The guard for the entire area was scarily excessive – almost a full dozen men with weapons within arm's reach had been arranged on all sides of the occupied building, although none of them in particular were looking particularly attentive, playing cards, smoking, or otherwise generally shooting the breeze.

The sight of idleness made her sick. The scene looked like something out of one of her own experiences, a day where Squad 7 had learned about their lack of deployment to an operation for the fourth time – or had it been the fifth? Everyone had been at ease, recreation had been scheduled. But seeing this now? So this was what the "glorious army" was considering an "operation".

There came a noticeable change in the men the moment they caught sight of the blonde sergeant, though – weapons magically found their ways into their hands, cards and cigarettes disappeared, and uniforms somehow became straightened, even inspection worthy. One snappy salute later, she had reworked her opinion of them.

Lazy, but competent.

The sergeant returned their salute, and suddenly the scene was restored to its previous state. The rapid change was almost comical.

However, one soldier didn't fall back at ease - a blonde-haired Gallian corporal, only slightly younger than the sergeant, walked professionally towards the sergeant, snapping a second salute. Upon having one returned, though, he fell back at ease, as did the sergeant, fully completing the casual scene.

"Halsey," nodded the sergeant.

"Worrick," the corporal replied. Well, at least she had their names. "Now, we've been trying to get the Imp to talk, per your orders, sir. We've tried to act a bit more, er, loosely than normal, but I don't think he's feeling any easier." Isara blinked in confusion, and opened her mouth to interject, but a small squeeze on her shoulder convinced her to leave it alone for now. "Pity." Halsey sighed. "I was looking forward to delivering some justice on the enemy."

"Halsey, you know how idiotic the brass is," Worrick said resignedly. "Have we ever been deployed in something that was neither a milk run or a slaughter?"

"At least we haven't been in the 'right' place for the second," grumbled the corporal.

"Halsey," the sergeant warned.

He jumped, almost to attention again. "Sorry, sir! But… don't you think it's frustrating to never get a chance to fight properly?" The formality didn't last long as he began waving his hands, clearly incensed. "I mean, damn, the militia's walking all over us – they've got a competent commander, at least when the brass lets her give her own orders. And that Squad 7; damn! They've tromped all over those Imps, getting at all the juicy action! None of these layabout jobs or bloodbaths."

Isara couldn't resist. "Squad 7? We've been through some flak before. Fouzen was… unpleasant." A squeeze clamped down on her shoulder; she ignored it. "If we'd had more support, we could have saved the concentration camps – but I swear, the brass were trying to get us killed on aaaaaccck!" She dropped to one knee into the dirt, her guard pressing down hard enough to bruise.

"That'll be enough, Claud. Get her into a cell… five, if you please." Five; that was the one currently occupied, four. It only made sense to have the prisoners right next to each other – with the buildings being completely enclosed, without as much as a window, there was no way for the prisoners to communicate with each other, and spreading out the guard was more dangerous if either of them tried something, even if that was an unlikely prospect with the heavy bar that could fall across the door to seal it shut.

Absently, Isara thought that it would be easier to try and bust through a wall than that, although there was certainly no way for that to happen either.

Even as Claud and the armed guard led her into the shack, the two officers began talking. What she caught was bare, but it was clear that they were talking about her, and her predicament as a whole. Quickly, the two guards patted her down – professional avoiding lingering gropes, which surprised her – and took away anything that was potentially dangerous, which was to say everything she had, especially the wrenches that she had applied as improvised weapons so many times before. After they took the last fine screwdriver out of its bag, they untied her bounds and gave her a solid push into the building.

And then the door closed, the bar dropped, and she found herself alone.

She had been wrong – the building wasn't completely sealed. The ceiling was shuttered in a corner, opening to the sky for a supply of light and fresh air, with a string – thin, too weak to hang oneself on – to open and close it at will. However, the shutters were solid metal, and her engineering background told her that it was definitely well anchored into the ceiling – popping it out and fleeing was not an option. There was a cot in the corner, propped out on the wood floor – so no tunneling, unless she found a way to hide the noise of breaking through the surface, which was laughably impossible. A step away was a folding chair – mostly cloth, it was impossible to use as a weapon. Finally, there was a bucket, most likely for bodily processes. Interestingly, this seemed to be an object that had not been designed with security in mind. When she toed it curiously, she found it heavy. Add in the two handles on the side, and you had a definite bludgeoning weapon.

She filed that tidbit away for later use. With calm acceptance no longer an option, with Celes's upcoming execution, perhaps it would come in handy.

Pacing the entire shack, she found that it was about four strides square, if she took long ones. She did this a few times, bored, ears filled with the mindless, inane chatter of soldiers talking about the "stupid war", girls back home, opinions on random subjects, none of them relevant. Soldier talk.

Time passed. Her pacing might have worn a trail in the soil, had there not been wood instead. Her mind raced with possibilities. Were they going to talk with Celes again? With her again? How would they try to convince them to "give up information", which she couldn't possibly have? Or would they just ignore her, and take Celes to the firing squad without a word?

An hour later, when chatter floated through the shutter again, she stopped. Sitting on the cot to listen carefully, she perked up her ears – the conversation had just turned relevant.

"… that's likely," came Halsey's voice, dripping with sarcasm.

"I don't believe it either," sighed Worrick. "Under just what circumstances would this Celes-person come into contact with a miltiawoman close enough for her to know his name – and him hers – "

Well, it seemed Celes had let it slip too. She felt a little better about her slip up, before depressingly realizing that it simply made the whole scenario much more damning.

"– and why was he so unwilling to talk at all to save his life?" Worrick finished. "You heard him – he refused that offer of delay of execution point-blank. We'd send him to the military courts back in Randgriz, and most likely they wouldn't kill him – bad for public image. Surely he knew that."

"You weren't _really_ going to give it to him, were you?"

"Yes." Her heart beat anxiously. "That's what the books say, Halsey, you know I'm not that cavalier –"

"Yeah, yeah –"

"I really didn't think that he'd be willing to give up his unit's location – and he so conveniently doesn't have his helmet so we can just get it without asking – but the moment I mentioned a Darcsen girl that beat him over the head with a wrench, just like she said she did, he got real quiet. Wouldn't say a word." A pause – she imagined one was looking at the other funnily. "Well, no, he did start to say 'Isara'," the sergeant admitted.

Well, that had been a poorly timed comment, Celes. Good job.

This was turning out to be a rather informative eavesdropping. Isara wondered if they realized she could hear her. More distressingly, she wondered if the entire conversation was just a farce to draw her out.

"Do you have an opinion about that door through his leg?" Halsey asked.

"… I can't find a logical explanation for it. It seems way too farfetched for a ploy."

"So strange, it must be the truth, eh?"

"… well, it took us all that time to finally chop it off his leg. It almost seems planted."

Silence from Halsey. "The wood was rotten around the hole."

"Awfully convenient," Worrick refuted.

"You're suggesting he decided to get it around his leg on purpose?"

"… still. It doesn't add up."

"What about the rest of his unit? We have any idea about where they are, enough to bluff him out of some information?"

Worrick paused, obviously thinking. "We have that militiaman's report of Imperial activity around that town – Lia, was it? – but then a search found nothing." A pause. "Of course, he did have the dead squadmates to show for it."

"Damn Imps."

"Well, I hate to say it, it seems almost karmic in nature." Isara's heart leapt. So while Worrick might have seemed a heartless measurer of life earlier, he still wasn't a completely thoughtless man.

"How so?"

"He called in artillery on the Imps right before they ambushed him – but from any report, the civilian casualties were immense. Lia was almost wiped off the map. Any scout worth his salt would have stayed his hand." A short, sharp laugh. "Makes me wish the Imps actually got him."

"They did find one helmet, sir."

"_One_ helmet. That was all they found. I don't care what you think, one Imp is not worth a hundred of our people's lives."

Halsey grunted in agreement. "That kind of irrational move makes me wonder if we'll ever be able to meet face to face again. If this war ends – " he corrected himself – "_when_ this war ends, after all their atrocities, how will they ever hope to keep a political image?"

A pause from Worrick. "Hmm. Some idiot will always find a way to make friends with another idiot. It's the way of life. Take a look at us." Isara smiled.

"… was that insulting you or me?"

"Forget it."

After a second pause, Halsey gave his own opinion. "On the same note, think those two are friends or something?"

"If we go with the spy angle – and I'm still not willing to believe that girl's story – then, no, it's definitely just professional standards."

"Heh… think they're lovers?" Halsey offered salaciously.

Isara restrained the urge to deny it, but she flushed anyways. She remembered her little gesture in the tunnel – that light caress. What had she been thinking, anyways? Oh, of course she had just meant it in a brotherly way, like she had used to do with Welkin when they were younger – but she hadn't done that for years, ever since he'd gone to university. And that urge had been so strong, she had just decided to go with it. That scent of sterility and yet of _person_ was so strange, something she'd never experienced before –

"… really, what possibly gave you that idea? Get your mind out of the gutter, Halsey."

"Sir!"

Isara decided that was also a good idea for her.

Silence. "Did you get the report from _Private _Macarthy yet?" There was an emphasis on private, a derisive tone. Maybe they didn't like him either.

"Yeah, claims the Imperial assaulted him still," Halsey grumbled.

"Assaulted with bandages, ragnaid, and an act of friendship, more like. I mean, I can see him trying to act all nice to make his case better, being on the road to execution, but something is kind of strange – I don't think a spy would be trained in such advanced care."

"Advanced?"

"Well, that instrument the witnesses said he used? I've never even heard of it. Our medic's never heard of it, and not even our surgeon's heard of it. Whatever it is, it did a damned good job – that hand's almost completely cured, and not a single bit of overgrowth to show for it."

"Maybe it's an idiot-proof tool."

"… no, it seemed he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly where the injury was… even after getting punched in the face."

"I'm telling you, we need to court-martial that bastard again." Isara agreed, although the word "again" caught her interest.

"The judges won't let such a patriotic person get out of the army. You know as well as I do they'll keep him in, only taking away his prospects of promotion any time soon – he's been a private since the First War. If he could just keep a lid on that rage of his, he'd be a retired major by now. But alas, we've tried twice already," he added sardonically. "Both cases of brawling, no less."

"Hitting a man who just wanted to help, right after you attacked him for a small comment?" Halsey's voice was comically reasonable, in stark contrast to his words. "Yeah, that's perfectly fine. You bein' nice ta me?" His voice drawled in an imitation of Ralf's rural accent. "Why, that means I gotta punch ya in the face!"

"Hey, maybe he just really doesn't like the empire. He is a First War veteran, after all."

"Explain the brawling with fellow soldiers, then."

"… it's his way of expressing friendship?" Halsey joked.

"No," Worrick interjected flatly.

The banter was familiar to Isara, of soldiers who had trained, lived, and fought together. Perhaps the army wasn't all that different at a basic level. Like Halsey had complained, perhaps it was just stupid brass in the end.

"Back on topic," the sergeant started anew, "we should really talk with her now. This 'Isara'."

"You did start writing that report to the brass, right?"

"Yeah, it'll be done – after we talk, that is."

"… you know, I think she heard us. The vent _is _open, after all, like you requested, and we _are_ standing right in front of the door."

Silence. "Halsey, you incompetent bastard, why'd you start this conversation?"

"I thought you wouldn't respond."

"You know I always respond."

"Have to have the last word, don't you?"

"Yes."

"See?"

"Just stop."

"Alright."

"You didn't stop."

"I did!"

"Liar."

"Control freak."

"… I'm opening the door now."

He did. The bar scraped open, the door opened wide, and the two Gallian officers were treated to the sight of her clutching her sides, barely restraining a fit of laughter.

No matter what the situation, it was still funny.

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**Hopefully, that banter, although unprofessional, gave you an insight into these two characters and their world, as well as the events happening around Isara and Celes. If I forgot any glaring facts, let me know, although remember that they do think that the two of them are spies.**

**This was **_**really**_** fun to write – hopefully, I can use them as "those two guys" for a while.**

**Leave a review! Next up, Isara lays down the facts of their situation…**


	31. Fathers

**SovietSniper92: Unfortunately, there's absolutely no real reason as to how I could drag Halsey and Worrick **_**with**_** Celes and Isara. That being said, seeing as the army is blindly bumbling around anyways, I don't think it's too much to say that they could crop up in other locations for, as they would put it, "no apparent reason". Damn, I love lampshading.**

**DC20: Yeah, Isara isn't everyone's character. Perhaps it was the method with which they had to characterize her for maximum benefit – a deathly calm, almost perfect woman, just so that when she kicked the bucket, you flew into an unstoppable rage. (Hopefully. I did. :D) Her background gives her plenty of possible depth, as does the goal of Darcsen philosophy, if she was taken out of an organized war setting. I always personally thought that there would be very little reason for people to care about racism when they were getting shot out, so… yeah, additional character depth. As for nukes, knowing that a departure from ragnite wouldn't cause people to rage-quit my story… hehehehe. I see how it is. The whole "Selvaria dies" thing was an exact mirror of something like Hiroshima, so the jump to nukes seemed almost logical. But now I put a lid on details. And rest assured that Rooney isn't going to be exactly "in charge". The details are much more… vague. :3**

**Now Halsey and Worrick hear the story from Isara. Hilarity ensues, not all of it funny, although how that's supposed to make sense is beyond me.**

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Now extremely disgruntled with themselves, Halsey and Worrick squared themselves against Isara, Halsey doing his best to look sympathetic, Worrick brooding and dangerous; it was the standard interrogative procedure to force out bits of information. Unfortunately for them, their earlier spat made the entire thing look like the act it obviously was.

Still, they did their best.

The moment she was able to restrain her overflowing humor to a wide smile, Worrick began. "I'm sorry, _spy_ – "

"Not necessarily, sir. This could just be one huge mistake." Halsey, acting in his role, corrected him.

Normally, Isara might walk further into the trap, stretching out her current story. The ploy was for her to stretch whatever constructed alibi until it either looped or contradicted itself, condemning her.

As such, she would only offer the truth, something that could never be a source of guilt. Whatever stories she had forged before, she would tear down without reservation. "My name is Isara Gunther, enlistment number 7UAZ-149-0I14-MNC20." She kept her voice pleasant, as if they were simply chatting over a meal or sharing a drink.

Always truthful, never spiteful. That had been her problem earlier; it was little wonder why she'd landed in this position. She had no hope of winning a direct confrontation with two trained soldiers – so she would simply stick to the facts, and hope that they would believe.

The alternative could only end in her friend's death.

Halsey perked up – not an act, but genuinely interested. "Gunther, you said? As in the late General Gunther, the Blue Unicorn of Gallia?"

Isara let her own enthusiasm rise to the surface. "Yes, corporal," she nodded. "After my father died, the good General took me in."

"Oh, so he's not your birth father?" Worrick seized.

"I am a _Darcsen_," Isara huffed. The General had been a full-blooded Gallian, along with his wife. "Lieutenant Welkin was his only biological child. I was adopted after my father died."

There was a small silence. Stymied by both that information and the mentioning of the famed general's famed son, all the sergeant could let out was a short, "Oh."

Halsey glared at him. Isara wasn't sure if it was feigned or genuine. "You could have a little more patience, sir." Turning back to her, he said, "So what was it like, living underneath the General?"

A personal question; unexpected. She started a bit – cursing inwardly, knowing it made her look suspicious – but tentatively offered, "He was a good man. Always fair, always kind. He never really got out much – I think the death of his wife hit him hard." She let a wistful smile cross her face. "I'm sorry I never got to know her."

"What did you do with him, most of the time?"

"Well… honestly, I didn't spend much time with him personally, either." She frowned at the thought. "I spent lots of time with Martha, my – our nanny," she corrected, thinking of Welkin as well. It always seemed like a better idea to leave him alone. I did make sure to take care of him… but truthfully, he always seemed to want to be alone." Offering a sad smile, she added, "I did the next best thing for him."

The two Gallians nodded, a blonde and black head in unison, different and yet the same. She continued, "I worked on the Edelweiss. As my biological father's gift to the General, it only seemed right that I take care of it, maintain it… upgrade it," she added with a small chuckle, thinking of her not-so-minor engine replacement that had responded so well underneath her driving hands. The turbine engine had been the latest development in Gallian industry – a few adjustments and it practically doubled the vehicle's mobility. With a pang of regret, she wondered who was taking care of the tank now. Ever since Bruhl, she had been the only one charged with maintaining the Edelweiss, as the only one with the knowledge of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the vehicle.

Bruhl – the place she had first met Celes. She couldn't lose focus on him. A single slipped poorly worded statement could condemn him forever. He was a good soldier, a good doctor – a good man, someone she wanted watching her back. Surely the military wouldn't condemn him for treating her.

Worrick let his face resolve into a quizzical expression. "Wait, so you're saying that your father was _Theimer_? Professor Theimer?"

The truth. "… yes."

Halsey triumphantly pointed a finger at her. "Ha! Well tell me then – what was his last published thesis about? Surely, as his biological daughter, you'd have looked up that fact." A glint in his eye showed that he didn't expect her to know – but unfortunately, she did.

Right after he had finished that thesis, he had supposedly begun looking for a publisher. But before he could find anyone willing to look past his Darcsen blood, he had had his accident, and the paper had died with him.

She had been too young to remember, a mere infant. But the moment she had begun to walk in her father's footsteps in the field of engineering, she had made a point to study everything that Theimer had done. That meant reading his theses, even if she hadn't been able to understand them at the time.

Isara braced herself. "It had to do with a new element they found deep under a ragnite mine, silvery grey. Supposedly, it gave off similar amounts of energy to activated ragnite – without processing." The paper went on to muse on the possible applications of the element, especially if somehow activated or tapped into, releasing greater amounts of that energy at once, as they had discovered with ragnite already. The hypothetical estimates were unlike anything so much as imagined before. She thought of the huge tank that they had fought in the Barious Desert much earlier, the Batomys, and how much ragnite must have been involved with its power supply. A similar amount of this element could potentially power a city – releasing it all at once would be catastrophic, an incomprehensible amount of destruction.

Exactly three days later, Theimer died in a laboratory explosion – the same building that he'd been doing his research in – and the resulting inferno, not so much as a loose tooth surviving the conflagration, much less any of his latest findings. Although there had been plenty of grief among his friends, including General Gunther, no one had blinked an eye at the circumstances – it was just an unfortunate accident, possibly linked to the amounts of energy Theimer had drawn conjectures on – but to Isara, something about the way the building conveniently burned down completely seemed off. The explosion, she could see, but there had been no reason for the rest of the structure to burn down.

She knew that she was being ridiculous – what possible discovery could cause someone to want to destroy all evidence of it? – but, deprived of ever knowing her biological father, she had nursed the thought since childhood.

She found herself jerked back to reality when Halsey did a double take and looked from Worrick to Isara, the former wearing a puzzled expression, herself a tight, painful one. Isara wondered just who Halsey was to know so much about Theimer; was it a bluff on his part, or did he really know that much about him?

Before she could ask the question, he took a step back, letting Worrick take the active position. "I give up," he sighed. "I'm starting to think this girl's who she says she is," he muttered to his sergeant, sincerity tingeing his voice.

Somehow, Isara didn't think that was a ploy.

**********************************************************************************

**Background exposition!**

**Theimer dies in freak accident. Hmm. I wonder. Conspiracy theories ahoy.**

**Also, I couldn't find a single bit of information on either of Welkin's or Isara's mothers. ANYWHERE. So right now… I just killed them off vaguely. So yeah. (Hmmm.) If you could point out any information on these, I'll go back and repair whatever mistakes I've made.**

**I decided to do this to include nukes and yet still link it back to our main characters. Prepare for some serious mind screw coming up in the near future.**

**But first, we finish up the interrogation and come to a conclusion...**


	32. Truth

**Found a small tidbit on Welkin's mother in the official manga. Unfortunately, Isara's is still a black hole.**

**And now we finish Isara's questioning, and get Celes into the picture…**

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Watching Halsey retreat, the sergeant glared disappointingly his subordinate. "I didn't understand the reasoning for that, but I'll make sure to ask later."

Turning his gaze back towards Isara, he stepped forward, a scowl on his face. "Your little Imp friend here has been singing like a bird after the drugs we pumped into him," he lied. "We've got everything we need to know. Just tell us just what you were thinking, with such a half-assed plan."

He pointedly overlooked the fact that he had given away the exact opposite information a few steps outside. She decided to as well, if only for the sake of saving some face.

"It wasn't a plan," she said. "Everything you saw us doing was what we thought was right at the time. The only agenda you could say we have is to stay alive, and isn't that everyone's?" she posed.

Worrick grumbled a bit. "You really are digging your heels in. Tell us, then. Just what is a militiawoman doing out of proper uniform, in the presence of an Imperial she seems to have more than professional ideas for?"

Isara hotly opened her mouth to protest that she had nothing but rational plans involving Celes, prepared to fervently deny any sort of ulterior motive, but fortunately she remembered that, as a member of the Gallian armed forces, she was supposed to be at war with the Empire's soldiers.

After meeting Celes, she wondered if she could ever think of them as faceless, immoral demons again.

Swallowing, she raised her fingers to her jacket buttons – slowly, to not startle either of them. Halsey raised an eyebrow. "If you're hoping to seduce us, I'll go ahead and say –"

"Mind your tongue," she interrupted. "I have to show you something." The blonde twisted his mouth shut, while Worrick absently reached towards his sidearm, placing the hand onto the butt of the gun in case she tried anything.

The first two buttons came loose underneath their quizzical gaze, and then she pulled her left arm out of the blue sleeve. Their eyes tracked the bare limb as it snaked out of the open front, jacket tilted just enough to preserve her modesty, exposing some white cloth around her still-covered breast.

The dark haired Gallian coughed. "If you really think this is going to work, then –"

She flushed, and snapped, "Be quiet. Now look."

With that, she pulled the jacket a little farther, exposing the white cloth for what it truly was – the bandaging of a wound, a wound that would have killed her, except for a pair of generous hands that pulled her back from the brink.

The two of them were trained soldiers, with enough experience to know what the wound entailed that close to the heart. Halsey let out a low whistle. "Geez, you should have said something about that. What was it?" He wrinkled his brow, thinking – confused. "What'd you get hit with? I mean, obviously you weren't hit with any heavy rounds, else you wouldn't be here –"

"An Imperial sniper round," she deftly corrected.

Those rounds were fearsomely powerful, enough to smash past the integrated armor in a Gallian uniform from almost a mile away. To be hit there was almost assured death, and if one survived, it wouldn't be for long.

Unless someone intervened.

Now Worrick was the one to show interest, eyeing the thin red line that had seeped through the cloth – she hadn't followed Celes's orders to stay completely still, and had probably burst a few stitches. Suddenly, she was reminded that he had been supposed to give her a post-op examination today. "If you'll excuse me, sirs, Celes was supposed to look at the wound again today," she offered, purposefully timid, but making sure to emphasize the "again". "He kept saying things about possible complications and backsliding conditions," she added, putting fear into her voice.

The semi-act was enough to put the two Gallians off balance. Either they refused the contact between their two prisoners, jeopardizing her condition, or they allowed him to see her, and by extension let them exchange information.

She watched them teeter back and forth, and triumphantly she watched a resigned expression flit across Worrick's face. "Fine then, _Isara_, if that really is your real name," he grumbled. "We'll let him see you – after we finish asking a few more questions."

Smiling with relief, she nodded. She expected nothing less.

"Just how did an Imperial end up operating on you?" Halsey began. "Whatever was wrong with a Gallian doctor…"

And so she answered. She told of how Fina had been insufficient to cure the wound, how she had been rushed to a town in search of a doctor. How Celes, in disguise, had selflessly offered his services – although she left out mentioning Lieutenant Karst and the rest of his unit for now. How they had been shelled out of the blue, how she and Celes had dragged themselves out of the escape tunnel – and how they, the Gallian regulars, had found them.

Throughout the story, she answered questions. Militia squads lacked fully certified surgeons, who stayed instead with the regulars – Worrick looked slightly embarrassed at that fact. It seemed he'd assumed that all the armed forces had them. Why had Celes been in disguise? Marching around in Imperial uniform would be instant death for him. His generosity was a question she couldn't answer, but she did offer simple kindness as a possible reason.

It raised more than one eyebrow amongst the Gallians.

The shelling had been the report of friendly fire and "collateral damage" they had heard she had died in, the shelling she had only escaped (relatively) unscathed through due to Celes's own acts. And then, the moment they'd finally dragged themselves out of the tunnel, a patrol had found them.

And so here she was, trying to get them out of their predicament.

Finally, about an hour later, they were done. A little less than unconsciously, she raised a hand to touch the bandage in a pointed statement.

Halsey stretched uncomfortably, bouncing from one foot to the other – standing for such a long time would do that do anyone. "I'll talk with your friend to confirm your story," he ceded. "If we find the same story from his side, we'll bring him over here to look at you, like you've asked."

Worrick glared at him. "You mean, _we_, you presumptuous knucklehead."

"You're not stopping me, are you?"

"… that's an order, corporal."

Grinning in a small victory, the blonde slipped through the open doorway, nodding to a guard that had slipped into position sometime during her conversation. She hadn't noticed – she had had other things to focus on.

For somewhere around half an hour, all Isara could do was eye Worrick, and him her. The Gallian seemed to not want to ask any questions without his subordinate around to also hear, which was perfectly fine with her.

And then a flurry of low spoken commands filtered through the door, and Halsey walked through once more, Celes in tow, limping every step of the way.

Isara couldn't help but let a small gasp escape her upon seeing him. He looked horrible. His face had by now completely bruised, staining his entire cheek underneath his covered eye. As he took another painfully stiff step towards them, she saw that no one had bothered to take a look at his previous injuries from the shelling.

She could see that no one had bothered to look at the leg that had had the door stuck around it either; quickly evacuating the chair she had been sitting in, she let him gingerly limp a last step into the chair. Humorous as the situation had been, she'd overlooked the possibility of an actual injury - it seems he'd sprained a joint, the way he walked.

He turned, awkwardly, and assumed some semblance of a dignified position, facing off against not two, but three Gallians. Yet he only had an eye for one of them, as he bored an accusing glare into Isara's own gaze. At that, she flushed and turned away, finding something very interesting about a knothole in the floor.

In a low, tight voice, his only question to her was, "Why didn't you leave me?"

And she felt herself fill with righteous fury, restraining the urge to slap him as hard as she could.

*********************************************************************************

**Next up, Celes and Isara do their best to have a chat, and then the surgery begins.**


	33. PostOp

**Ominae: If I had the time to make longer chapters, I couldn't update as often, and I really think that it's a bit more interesting this way. Remember, these aren't "chapters", per se. Those are highlighted by the little drop window – although I suppose it'd look a lot better if I bothered to put them in the actual text as well. Oh well.**

**Cloner4000: Get wha? In other news, Celes has been through the meat grinder. In reality, I probably should have made his condition a lot worse than I have been, resulting in the events of this chapter looking a bit stupid. Oh well.**

**I just realized I probably should have had Celes introduced as Celestyn, to be more formal, making the contraction to Celes a plot device. Oh well.**

**I've been saying oh well too much. Oh well. *slap***

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Sprawled onto the folding chair, Celes blearily took in his surroundings.

Her hand twitched uncontrollably. A vein bulged in her eyelid – something he'd never seen before. Her blue-black locks fell lanky to frame a face pinched with stress, accentuated with a pair of dark eyes gleaming with fury. With his forged Gallian jacket dangling an empty sleeve, baring a smooth shoulder to the air, she gave an impression of being both helpless and dangerous at the same time. An artist might have found the tinge of red seeping through the bandage a contrasting effect, but he found it worrisome – that would have to wait, though.

Overall, it was a stunning sight. Unfortunately, it was also the last thing he had wanted to see.

The moment he'd been captured, he knew he was a write-off. An Imperial in the army's custody never came back alive, although they did make a point to send back bloody helmets.

He didn't have a helmet, but whatever got the blood on them was sure enough to happen to him.

There was nothing to do but sell his life as dearly as possible. But in the end, he was a coward – the thought of going down in a hail of gunfire wasn't appealing to him, but disgusting. Besides, with freshly broken - albeit hastily treated - bones in his chest and arm, he could hardly put up a satisfactory fight.

So he had done his best to ensure that his only companion was free of any blame. After all, she had been found with him.

Of course, Isara being Isara, she'd gotten herself dragged into this mess anyways. It was enough to make him grind his forehead in his palm.

It was too bad that bending even that small distance would ignite fires up his spine. Something had definitely broken in the blast.

Mind not entirely present, he pursued the questioning further. "No really, Isara. You could have made this easy, called me an Imp, let these clowns shoot me," and he pointed towards the two officers who looked quite offended at that comment, "and be off back to merry Gallia a day later."

A whistling noise later, he felt his head snap back. In a detached manner, he realized that Isara had snapped – although she had been kind enough to slap the other cheek.

"Who do you think I am?" she shrieked at him. It was almost like a wife scolding a cheating husband – although he wondered just what made him come to that conclusion. "The infamous Darcsen or something?"

He blinked twice before realizing she wasn't talking about Darcsens as a whole, but was instead referring to the original Darcsen of yore – an amazing feat, given his current mental state.

"Well, _excuse me_, Isara," he drawled. "You were _supposed_ to go, live your life, and forget about me."

"And _you_ were supposed to be caring about your _own_ life, you _masochist_, you, you…!" She broke off with a barely-suppressed snarl, and raised a hand again; Celes watched it curiously, uncomprehending of its motive.

Before he could find out, though, the Gallian corporal who had picked him up earlier snapped out a hand and caught Isara's arm by the wrist. Even as he let out a quick, "Easy, girl!", she struggled against his grip, which suddenly caught his interest –

Instantly, his mind refocused, and he launched himself out of the chair upright, snapping an arm to her unwounded shoulder and squeezing firmly – hopefully not painfully. "Stop forcing that arm, Isara," he barked at her. "Do you _want_ to bust your stitches and bleed to death?"

He watched the two Gallian officers exchange a meaningful glance before the dark-haired sergeant nodded with finality. Apparently, he'd met some sort of expectation.

Whether it was a good one or a bad one was beyond him.

The Darcsen girl stopped fighting him, and both he and the corporal let go of her limb – she stepped back, sitting onto the cot, still firing a death-gaze at him. He met it calmly, using the moment to swing his bag onto his lap. "Alright," he growled. "Let's get this over with. Go home, Isara. I won't have your death on my conscience."

"Like hell I'll let you get yourself killed," she snarled back.

In other circumstances, the conversation might have been funny, even touchingly sweet. Right now, though, all he could feel was sadness for her. If she clung to him as he went down, she might just get herself killed as well.

He wondered just how the world would remember him. It was a sobering thought.

The blonde couldn't seem to decide who was more suspicious as Celes wormed his hands into his bag, pulling out the case of tools he'd need for the examination.

Wordlessly, Isara swallowed her last complaints and laid herself on the cot. He opened a ragnaid capsule, activated it – creating a local sterile field, eliminating the need for gloves for such a simple examination – unwound the bandaging around her shoulder, and began to look…

**********************************************************************************

"You're good," he finally let out. She had nothing more than a grunt of discomfort as he threaded the sutures of the incision back together. "You popped a few sutures, bled an insignificant amount, but none of the muscles were damaged, and as far as I can tell without going… invasive," he lamely explained, waving the pick he had been using in lieu of an actual knife, "your heart is just fine."

A last pass of a second ragnaid capsule later, he sterilized the closed incision, dabbed away a small amount of blood, and wrapped a fresh cloth around the wound. She only offered a second wordless grunt, and worked her arm back into its sleeve, arranging herself back into a more dignified sitting position on the edge of the cot.

Whatever doubts the Gallians had to his profession were gone now. Doing their best to make small talk during the procedure – hitting subjects as interesting as the weather and the local geography, which was to say not very – he'd picked up their names and ranks, along with some of their personality.

He wondered just how incompetent the Gallian brass were. Certainly, they were nothing like Jaeger, and not even close to Selvaria, holy Valkyria that she was.

Halsey let out a low whistle. "I'll say this now, Celes, you are most certainly a doctor," he admitted.

Worrick only grunted. "Makes me wonder what a non-combatant is doing so close to combat."

Celes jumped on that fact, eager to correct this particular misunderstanding. "I got drafted –"

Halsey blinked. "You're actually a solider?"

"… yeah, a trooper. I don't have a certification yet –"

"Really?" The sergeant tilted his head curiously. "Surely they'd find an education such as yours more important than war. You look like you'd have gotten it a while ago."

"I'm only seventeen, but thanks for the compliment." He had the satisfaction of watching their expressions shatter with disbelief. "Yes, the white hair's natural, and yes, we Imperials have mentally handicapped superiors as well," he answered preemptively.

Looking as though they were going to crack up any moment, the two officers turned as one to eye Isara, seeking confirmation. She nodded, before offering, "Hey, I'm only sixteen myself."

Well, that was a nice addition to an already awkward situation.

They only gaped at her as well, before Worrick awkwardly shifted back. "They take them too young these days," he complained. Celes saw the loaded glance towards his covered eye, saw that Halsey picked up on it and blinked twice, a sort of subtle talk only done by close friends, although he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing for him.

"You just turned twenty-five a week ago, you know," Halsey jibed shakily.

"Quiet, you old geezer," Worrick snarked back in response. I'm counting every single one of your own seventy s-"

Halsey swung a hand at Worrick, who handily dodged the clumsy move. It was all a show in the end, though, as they shuffled back towards their technical prisoners, attempting to assert some sort of authority.

Somehow, Celes felt that they'd won a kind of victory against them. What it was, though, was beyond him… like pretty much everything else in his situation.

The officers glanced at each other significantly – Worrick nodded, taking the lead. "Celes, you'll be returning to your cell now. We'll discuss your situation tomorrow. If you're lucky," he added dramatically, "we might let you live."

Perhaps they were serious, then. "Maybe," he said tentatively, packing away the last of his tools. "I suppose you don't get many of us –"

He cut off as he tried to stand, every one of his injured muscles suddenly twisting itself into knots, his recent fractures stealing all clarity of thought from him. Letting out a strangled groan that was simultaneously a cry of agony, he watched the wooden floor come closer and closer…

His last thought was that the floor was considerably softer than he had expected wood to be.

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**A bit of Celes, just for a change of pace. Next up: some drastic events that rapidly change Celes's outlook on life… although in what way is yet to be revealed. :3**


	34. Role Reversal

**Cloner4000: Tag! You're not quite correct – that was exactly the point of the statement. Subversion!**

***headbang* Somewhere while crafting "those two guys", I switched their hair colors from what I had originally planned. I made the mature sergeant blond while the joker was black-haired; somehow, those two switched. Huh. That's going to get fixed…**

**Also, I completely forgot about Worrick's verbal tic that I had meant to add to him, the "oh" that he was supposed to have at the beginning of almost every sentence. Too late now.**

**AND I forgot about Celes's previous abuse by Ralf's hands. Even though it doesn't change his attitude… oops. Ret-cons ahoy.**

**Back to Isara, and an extremely dramatically important event…**

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It took Isara a moment to realize what had happened. Celes had been in the middle of saying something about the lack of Imperials in Gallian custody when suddenly he began tilting forward off of his chair on a trajectory that brutally intersected with the floor.

Halsey was quickest to react, dashing forward and shoving the chair forward towards the cot, launching its human contents into a softer landing zone. Isara, sitting on the edge of it, very nearly found herself with an armful of Celes.

Fortunately for her, the moment Halsey had begun to move, she'd begun to dodge away to the side, and by the time Imperial hit cloth, the Darcsen had spun upright.

A little cooperative pushing and prodding from the three of them later, Celes was sprawled out comfortably – at least she hoped – onto the bedding.

Worrick turned to Isara, confused. "Just what did you guys go through today?"

She thought. Between getting shot, undergoing surgery, getting shelled, crawling through a huge tunnel and getting captured – and in Celes's case undergoing blunt trauma via angry boot – she really couldn't come up with an answer. "A lot of things," she offered lamely after a long pause.

Halsey sighed, and exchanged a loaded glance with Worrick. "Follow us," he commanded.

As one, they picked him up.

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They were in a medical unit, also prefabricated, which had been completely empty – until they'd come in and laid Celes onto one of the beds.

An aged, balding doctor bustled in, hurriedly attempting to make himself look presentable; with the lack of combat action, and therefore injuries, he'd only had camp accidents to care for, which had obviously been short of late given the lack of hospital occupants.

"This man has been through the figurative meat grinder," Halsey informed the man with authority. "He may be a prisoner, but he saved the life of a Gallian militiawoman at his own risk. Treat him with all the respect you would one of us."

Isara's heart leapt. So they believed her after all.

The doctor sized up the unconscious man, fingering the remains of his grey hair. "An Imperial prisoner, eh?" he asked in a reedy voice. A practiced eye paused at the purple cheek and the cloth band above it, but slid away to take in his graying hair and face. "Heh. I'll, heh, take care of him."

Isara distrusted him immediately. Apparently, so did Halsey and Worrick, the latter unbuckling his pistol belt and dumping it on a nearby table in a not-so-subtle statement. The doctor swallowed nervously; she could have kissed the sergeant.

"Ah, _I'm_ not going to touch the filthy man," he finally proclaimed. "As far as I can tell, he's got a, ahem, clean bill of health."

"Like hell he does," Halsey growled.

The doctor's eyes lit up belligerently. "You forget your place, corporal. Technically, I'm under the direct command of Colonel Nicholas, and don't you forget that fact. You can't order me around, and when I say that this man is perfectly fine, he's perfectly fine."

Halsey cocked a fist and took a step forward, rage in his eyes. "You –"

"Hit me, and I will have you court-martialed before you can say insubordination."

Isara bit her lip, but said nothing. Only a corporal herself, she could offer nothing if this man was unwilling.

Worrick gently put a hand on Halsey's shoulder, pulling him back. "Fine. Have it your way."

"I'll handle him then, you slacker."

Her statement took everyone off guard. The doctor recovered first though, looking at her for the first time with an unmistakable look of loathing. "A pig nursing another pig back to health. Fitting."

Temper flaring, she struggled to restrain it, encapsulating it in a bubble of cold ice. "A man who refuses his own profession is worse than a pig. He's dirt."

"Don't talk to your superiors that way, swine. You might just find yourself on the table, ready to be carved apart," he sneered.

Before Isara could rebut him – and most likely degrade the situation into a clash of insults – the two Gallians swept between them faster than a coursing river. "I think you have to leave now, sir," Halsey stated, cold with disdain.

The graying man nodded, haughtily raising his nose into the air. "I agree. Good evening, pig-lovers."

With that, he quickly strode away, out of the prefab structure. Isara's hot gaze could have sterilized his wake.

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Grunting with the effort, she rubbed a towel soaked in hot water against the toughened muscle of Celes's bruised back, wiping away dirt and grime that had snuck into his armor in the tunnel. On any other day, she might not have known what to do in the presence of a shirtless – much less pants-less – male at her mercy.

At least Halsey hadn't indulged in a bit of sadistic humor and had had the decency to leave Celes in his underclothes. Now, though, she had a more important subject than modesty in front of her.

Gently laying her palm onto a bruise, she opened a small ragnaid capsule that Worrick had dug out of the medical storage for her, shining blue light upon the wound. For a few long seconds, she held it there, before moving to the next major one.

Three capsules later, his back was still as black and blue as before, the white of the bandages around his ribs a stark contrast. However, she did not panic and keep applying ragnaid; the color was simply the excess blood that had bled internally from the burst vessels before she had fused shut and healed them. The color would not go away from further ragnaid application.

Secretly, she wondered just how impressed Celes would be when he woke up.

Soiled towels and empty ragnaid capsules piled onto a nearby table as she continued to work up and down his body. Turning his limp frame over, she worked on the other side.

For a soldier, she mused, he had very few scars. There were a few body features of note behind the bruises – some moles, some slight areas of varying coloration – but for the most part, he was unmarred. Perhaps Imperial armor had its merits in protection, after all.

There were ugly wounds on his ribs and arm were Ralf had kicked him – someone had obviously set and treated the fractures with ragnaid, as Celes had been in sufficient condition to treat her. However, by the look of things, they still should have hurt enough to send him into unconsciousness for the day. Instead, he'd gone through it without a word, not even bringing it up to treat her. She remembered a past experience of her falling out of a tree over a creek –

"_Come on, Isara, jump!" Welkin shouted from his spot in the water. Treading easily, he made sure to add, "You should see some of the trout in here –"_

"_I don't care about the stupid trout! Do I have to do this?" she shouted back down from her perch on conveniently overhanging branch. She was ten at the time, Welkin sixteen. About to go university, he'd been convinced by Isara to spend the last day with her personally, at the price of letting him do whatever he wanted to._

_If she had known it would involve water, she would have never started._

"_Yes…" he answered slowly, hurt by her comment._

_She sighed, unable to watch him hurt for long. "Oh, alright… I'll try," she lied. A look down, a mere yard down into the water, made her shiver with irrational fear. The sinister blue depths, the churning current, the lack of air, the inability to see how the stuff_ worked_, made her refuse to even get near the stuff normally. She'd only gotten this far with her brother's constant string of encouragement._

_A minute slipped by as she crouched, entranced by the water like a rabbit in the thrall of a stalking fox. "Come on, Isara! I'll catch you!" Another minute. "You can do it, Is!" Another. "If you don't come down, I won't write you at all while I'm at university!"_

_That did it. Eyes screwed shut, she let herself tumble from the limb. The ground replaced the sky, Welkin shouted at her, the ground flipped back up to its normal orientation – wait a minute, the ground?_

_  
She'd unconsciously moved back to the shoreline while looking at the water, and had jumped without a second thought. Unfortunately for her, that meant that she was much higher than a yard above the ground – and the ground was not nearly as forgiving as water._

Crunch_. She felt the bones of her ankle give out in shards, her own shriek of pain blending with her brother's panicked one –_

Shaking the old tale off, she realized she was aware of several things that made her flush red to the roots of her hair, and surely would have sent Welkin into a protective brotherly rage if he knew she had thought upon subjects. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he wasn't aware of her predicament.

Chivalrous bastard. Why was she the one who had to clean up after his mess?

When the last bruise had been washed with both ragnaid and hot water and she had redressed his fractures, she allowed herself to walk into the adjacent room that the two Gallians had prepared for her own care. For a brief heartbeat, she hesitated at the threshold, looking back at her companion's sleeping form, but a growl from her stomach ushered her into the second half of the building.

It was amazing what a difference a warm meal, hot shower, and clean clothes could do a person.

A towel wrapped around her head, she walked back into the recovery room to find not just Celes, but all of her tools waiting for her on the bed. Hurriedly, she looked down at herself; her clothes were meant for men, no skirt in the camp for her to wear– there were few enough females in the regulars that many squads, platoons, or even companies didn't have a single one in their fighting ranks, and as such the military spared themselves the trouble of supplying them specifically at all. Not that she minded – in the end, pants were much more practical than a skirt for work anyhow.

There was the slight problem of not having anywhere to put her tools, though. She had had to customize on her own uniform to hold everything she needed, and now that was sitting in a pile of soiled linens along with her gloves – the things were filthy after her tunnel-crawl. Her decision to do that had stemmed from her obvious acceptance – surely she'd be around long enough to get the piece of clothing back from whatever soldiers were on laundry duty a mere day later.

With a sigh, she gathered them up and arranged them in a replica of how they would fit into her clothing on the surface of the table instead. Heaviest objects carefully arranged to maintain balance even when one of them was in use, fine tools that might require careful selection in front, unique tools that could be identified by touch on the sides and back.

Pleasant busywork to keep her mind off of worse things. That was the goal, at any rate.

It didn't work.

Wrench set split into to halves, alternating sizes on each side –

_Rosie's shocked face as she toppled, a little of her own blood splattered onto the redhead's hand –_

Screwdrivers in front, the better to select them –

_A blind swing of the wrench, a solid connection. The later embarrassment when she saw exactly what she had done, but only for a little bit as she rationalized her action –_

The bags of supplies in the back, as she'd have to pull them off to dig through them anyways –

_Arguing with Celes about professions, almost wrenching the quack in the skull had he not been on his guard, struggling with him until Lieutenant Karst had ordered him to stand down with little more than a cough, an impressive show of loyalty –_

A small hammer in the very center back –

_Celes, this time in a much better mood, brushing aside her belligerent comments and needled statements that were inspired by her post-operation crankiness –_

She gave up trying to work, and stacked the remaining tools roughly to the side, pulling a chair right beside the unconscious Imperial and setting herself down into it. Her gaze unconsciously rest upon his face, but before she could catch herself, it shifted to his cloth band which doubled so easily as an eyepatch.

His earlier story of a grenade damaging the orifice beyond repair still rung hollow to her. Curiously, she leaned and carefully looked to see if there were any signs of previous injury or scarring on his face.

Irritably, she realized just how close she was when his scent of medicine and ragnaid – and something else – engulfed her. She got her answer regardless, though: his face had most certainly never undergone serious harm. The handsomely youthful face that still managed to hold a tinge of maturity and promised more than mere surface thought ensured that –

Isara realized what ridiculously flowery terms she was assigning to Celes, almost like something out of one of Nadine's romance novels. Resolutely, she aligned her face with his, grabbed the cloth band –

And instantly stopped, stymied by a thought. Since when had Celes been drinking?

"Aw, ah shee haw it izzz, ya Imp-lovin' _slut!_" a rural voice drawled behind her. The scent of cheap moonshine, most definitely illegal to have and even more illegal to brew in camp, made her want to gag.

The only thing that stopped her from indulging in that was the cold metal of a pistol pressed against the back of her head.

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**Cue dramatic music. Prepare for a battle…**

**I think I've been losing some quality recently. If at all possible, can you point out at least one error you think I've made in this story – anywhere, even in the past. I promise to go back and fix it – as long as you give me a meaningful review, that is. :3**

**That, or you can just give me the review. I don't mind. Now click that green button. DO IT. DO IT NOW.**


	35. Chapter 7: Out of the Frying Pan

**Cloner4000: Are you calling for an awkward scene? :p**

**DC20: Thank you, sah! Corrections made. I'll make sure to not right so drunkenly in the future – oh wait a minute. *facepalm***

**049 Faithless Observor: Yeah… the whole in/out danger thing is just what **_**has**_** to happen as long as they stay in Gallia. Don't worry – at the end of this last arc, they (finally) make their belated escape. Oh shat, spoiler. As for the absolute evil of the characters… I plan on revealing the reasoning for the Darcsen hatred later. Colonel Nicholas is a big bad who has a reason for his beliefs… a huge and legitimate one, one that is extremist, but well-intentioned (kind of). Oh, and by the way, it involves Theimer and his previously introduced "last thesis". Right now, though, it seems really heavyhanded even to me. In other news, defensive writing is defensive. :p**

**Okay, so here comes Valkyria Chronicles 2. OMFGWTFBBQLOLWUTROFLCHINESECOMMUNISTCHAIRMAN. Since we have no clues as to what events it will entail yet, I'll not let the idea affect my story. If its events can be incorporated, I will, but if not, then it will be yet another story that never happened. Sorry, Ramal. :p**

**Also, where the cell did I get the phrase, "Blue Unicorn of Gallia"?**

**One Gallian regular, armed with a gun and rum courage. One Darcsen militiawoman, unarmed and taken by surprise. One unconscious Imperial medical student come soldier, unconscious and suffering from wounds. Now all three meet in an epic clash… okay, more like hospital brawl.**

**More sensitive readers, be warned. There is some graphic, brutal, violence in here, along with depictions of attempted rape… **

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Isara had just been shot two days before, but there was something completely different from a shot without warning to a cold-blooded hold up.

Had she not already known the pain and extremely high chance of death associated with bullet wounds, not only from her experiences with Squad 7 but on a personal basis as well, she might have wanted to just take the bullet right then and there.

She knew that being shot in life was nothing like flesh wounds the novels claimed them to be. That, and the position of the pistol gave her little hope of survival. No one lived with their brains splattered out in a narrow arc outside their skulls.

"Please…" she murmured, unmoving. Why was Ralf here? Why had he been drinking? Why was he armed, and why her?

And please what? Please tell me what you're doing? Please spare me? Please shoot me and get it over with?

The regular's only response was to grab her roughly with an arm around the neck in a chokehold, pressing her upright against him. She fought back, kicking at his feet, but the jab of the gun at her temple froze her solid again.

"Go ahead," he whispered into her ear, suddenly sinister and malicious. His proximity was disgusting – a lingering miasma of moonshine, rank with tinges of poisons and other substances not meant for human consumption, made it almost impossible to breathe, not like she was anyways. "Go ahead an' scream. No one cun har ya scream in heeyah. Wallz ah toooooo thick."

Like your accent, Isara wanted to rebut, but the press of his forearm against her throat suddenly cut off any air she could have used to speak. Spluttering, clawing at her captor's arm, lashing out with her feet – none of them had any effect. Slowly, the world began to turn dark around the edges, but she refused to give him the pleasure of hearing her…

A sharp sudden pain along her side was followed by the feeling of the world spinning around her; by the time she'd come to, she realized she'd been thrown down, knocking over chairs and tables in the process. The noise must have been immense – but no one came running in the long time it took for her to climb back to her knees. A chill ran down her spine as she considered Ralf's earlier statement, that no one would ever hear her – and the only other person in the room, Celes, was out like a light.

Ralf was strong, that much was apparent. She would never even stand a chance in a fistfight with him.

She looked back up just in time to see a hand snatch her collar, yanking her back upright – then into the air, as her feet left the floor. His coarse features filled her bleary vision; they were fixed in a predator's smile, a crocodile that had spotted a bare bottom.

One sharp exhalation later, she spat into his face, the only way to communicate what she thought of him that moment.

There was the clatter of metal, but before she could figure out where it came from, a blow smashed across her cheek, jolting her vision to the side, only to watch the world swing to the other side with a second open-palmed slap. He pulled her up off the floor again, dangling her from a hard grip on her shirt, and only then did she realize that he'd put the gun down to beat her barehanded.

She noted that even as a third blow sent her flying back with the sound of ripping cloth. When she hit the floor in a roll, there was a cold pressure against her chest, which she deduced must have been the floor against bare skin.

That was when she lost all rational thought, when his booted toe left an imprint in her stomach.

Thus began a cycle of brutal, systematic beating. She would stagger to her feet, only to receive a hit that floored her. She'd get hit again while on the ground, recoiling back upright away from it – and be too off-balance to answer the next blow again. Her arms bruised, her lip bled, her flesh crushed, her legs buckled. Furniture crashed, as she attempted to pull herself up onto beds or light chairs, or use them as temporary shields.

Isara never gave him the pleasure of hearing her scream.

She must have gone up and down a dozen times before she found herself unable to get up. Coughing out a spray of blood, she hazily felt herself being picked up and dumped roughly onto a table that was still upright. When she felt hands pawing across her body, her only thoughts were those of confusion.

It was when she felt her pants being dragged down her legs that she could snap back into action, throwing a punch into her molester's face. Something cracked. Not her knuckles.

The hands flew off of her with a cry of pain; immediately, she rolled off of the wooden furniture and dragged her clothing back up to its normal position. Futilely, she looked down and pulled at her shirt – the entire front had been ripped open, and for a few wasted moments she tried to reattach the loose ends.

She shouldn't have – Ralf came back with a vengeance with a gut-punch, sending her stumbling back, stars flashing in front of her eyes.

Everything hurt so much. There was nothing but the pain.

Black mist descended on her vision as she was dropped in a limp heap onto the same table once more. Her head lolled to one side, refusing to look at his mangled face – but she found herself looking straight into a mirror on the wall. She saw her own blood-marred features arranged in an expression of blank terror silently screaming for help, for the nightmare to end, to simply curl up and die.

But she couldn't; she couldn't fight, she couldn't blink, couldn't even close her eyes to the horrible sight in front of her.

The older man grunted with satisfaction, and reversed her earlier attempts on her clothes. With a feral smile, he reached for his own belt, but stopped to follow her gaze, hands pausing in their work. "Like what ya shee, slut?" he drawled, turning back to look at her face.

No, she screamed inside, but then she looked again - and reversed her opinion.

"Yes," she whispered. Ralf recoiled a foot, taken aback.

It was the only thing that prevented a hole from being blasted into his head.

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The bullet sped along its deadly course, but one panicked lunge later, its course ceased to be fatal. Instead of bone and brain, the slug connected with the reflective panel on the wall, breaking it into a thousand shining pieces.

Celes would have cursed, had he not been lining up a second shot already.

The Gallian jumped back from Isara's fallen form – _damn_ him – pivoting to face the Imperial. Absently, Celes wondered just what kind of soldier could smell that strongly of alcohol and still move that steadily.

It was quite disturbing, he reflected as he fired the Gallian's own weapon at him again.

Ralf's earlier kick from when they had entered the camp saved his life – Celes's arm, broken a mere morning before, buckled underneath the recoil of the small shot, and the shot went wide –

And then the Gallian was on him. The firearm spun out of his hand as he blocked the first punch with a hurriedly outstretched elbow, and for a time there was nothing but the press of flesh against flesh, fist against muscle, boot against bone.

Lieutenant Karst's close combat drills paid off this time – there was a furious exchange. Swings were dodged, short kicks caught on minor parts of the body, long punches redirected. When the engagement first broke, Ralf had gotten the worst of it, with several good hits around the kidneys and a broken right elbow. Celes had only taken one hit of note, but it was a serious one: a stunning kick to the chest, the blow that had caused the disengagement.

Before he could recover, Ralf attacked again – ignoring the debilitating pain that he surely must have felt. Celes lunged back away from a kick that would have ripped off his jaw; when the Gallian was overly long in following through with the move, he smashed at the limb itself, breaking the man's ankle. Howling, the Gallian still was able to swing his weight around on his arms on a piece of furniture, connecting his foot with Celes's abdomen with enough force to send him staggering several feet back.

When Celes regained his footing, he was the quicker as Ralf tested his injury. Without giving him a chance to determine the extent of the damage, he made a fist connect with Ralf's temple.

Both screamed with fury, and they flew together into a scrum once more. They rained blows onto their bodies, not even trying to block, degenerating into two animals that clawed at each other to kill the other. Celes was getting the worst of it with every exchange, packing less raw strength than his opponent; but every time he faltered, Celes only had to see Isara's ruined face and body to throw him into a killing rage once more.

But when a hastily improvised weapon in the form of a wooden chair leg sent him bowling head over heels, tipping the scales of the combat, he admitted that he was the sure loser of that exchange.

Panting with exertion, dripping with sweat, and covered from head to toe with overlapping injuries, he was able to stagger to his hands and knees, head hanging, trying to summon enough willpower to stand. A few seconds later, there was the evil sound of a pistol's action being worked; blindly, he spun up from his downed position. Miraculously, his hands connected with a metal object – he had just enough consciousness to jerk it towards the ceiling when a thunderclap resounded between his palms. A shower of building material rained onto his face, but he stood unflinchingly, fighting to keep the gun away from him.

Both of their stances wide for support, Ralf growled as they struggled, he working to kill, Celes struggling to survive. Celes's bare feet gave him precious little traction; he stumbled back from the massive strength that his foe exerted, but the Imperial maintained a death-grip on the weapon regardless. His retreat ended against the wall – spikes of pain radiated from his back, and the warm wet sensation of running blood told him that he'd run into the ruins of the mirror he'd shot earlier.

Forcing himself to use the wall as an anchor – screwing the shards of glass deeper into his flesh – he cast his eyes about, looking for something, anything for an advantage in the fight. They descended upon Isara's body on the table – or rather, where her body had been laying a minute before.

Smiling, he realized that she'd escaped. There was nothing more he needed to do.

Slowly, losing out to the pain and disorientation, his willpower ebbed out of him. His death crept closer and closer, the pistol's barrel sliding down to a mere inch away from his forehead.

He closed his eyes. In his mind, he was already dead.

In fact, he thought he heard Isara's voice scolding him one last time.

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**Another cliffhanger, because I'm a SOB. Too bad for protagonist armor… but hey, I can do my best.**

**And besides, you still don't know what happens after Celes (supposedly) scrapes by. So ha. Ha ha.**

**Tell me my errors and help give me corrections in your review. Keep writing quality high! Now PRESS THAT GREEN BUTTON NOW, and WRITE.**


	36. What Now?

**Ancestor's Dragon: A new reader, I see! Always welcome. I wondered if I was stretching limits of believability with their kindness, but I decided that if everyone was against them, it would be even less believable, so there. :p**

**I just got out of my workshop, so things have been hectic as I get back into my normal routine. I don't like the integrity of this blurb, but it certainly could be a lot worse…**

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"Stand down!" Isara shrieked in sync with Halsey and Worrick. The two had their sidearms out and aimed, triggers already half-cocked. There was no response from the wrestling duo, and if Isara was any judge the gun that Ralf had reclaimed slipped even closer towards Celes's head.

Halsey blinked at Worrick – the superior nodded, and Halsey's handgun spoke a brutal word in warning. The bullet sped an inch from the fighting Gallian's ear, but he didn't so much as blink, instead fiercely responding, "_Don't stop me! I'm goin' ta –'_"

"Stand down!" Worrick cut off. Ralf had no rebuttal except to struggle with renewed energy.

Nervously adjusting the blanket around her shoulders, she examined Celes – saw his injuries, the fading look in his one visible eye. Horrified, she saw him let the gun slip another millimeter down –

That was all she could take. "Celes!" she cried, unable to stand idly for any longer, trying to inspire him to keep fighting, to not give up.

Her voice had a sudden impact on him – not the one she intended.

He let go.

Before she could even comprehend what had happened, Ralf, unprepared for the sudden change of conflict, crashed to the floor. Celes peeled himself away from the wall – literally peeled, she saw, her eyes widening as she witnessed the carnage that the broken glass had made of his back – and stumbled over and away from the Gallian regular.

At least he tried to. Two reports later, his right leg buckled midstride in a spray of blood, and he went down, hard. Ralf had taken his shots from the floor.

The Gallian officers responded with a second set of warning shots right over his head, still hoping to get him to stop fighting. It didn't work – a third shot creased Halsey's brow. As he fell back, swear words on his lips, Isara running to catch him. Worrick finally bit the figurative bullet and put a physical one into Ralf's brain.

And just like that, it was over.

Isara unceremoniously pushed Halsey's cursing body back into a standing position, letting him find his feet himself, and ran to the Imperial's fallen form and threw herself down. Heart in her throat, she grabbed at his hand, shouted his name, about to give in to a full fledged panic –

"Leg," he grunted. Isara could have cried.

Hurriedly she looked down to where a single round – so one of the shots had missed – had hit his thigh, exiting through the other side. It was bleeding a lot, spurting red in a steady rhythm – without thinking, she whipped off her blanket and rolled it tightly around the wound. Even that wasn't quite enough pressure, as red began to soak through the blanket.

"It went through your thigh –"

"I know _that_," he grumbled. "It hit an artery – the femoral. Major blood vessel. Pressure… here," he ordered, grabbing the junction between his thigh and pelvis. Had this been a less life-threatening situation, she might have made a comment, but instead she followed his command to the letter, pressing her hand against his weaker grip.

"That'll help cut off circulation – won't bleed out," he muttered. A second later, his eyes rolled up into their sockets, and his head fell limply to the floor –

"Celes!" she screamed at him. There was no response.

Boots sounded on the floor around her – Halsey and Worrick. "We'll take over," the latter said, crouching down to tie a cord from – somewhere, it was a medical building after all – as a tourniquet above the wound. Isara shot up from her position, ready to take any command that might help save him.

She found herself rushed from one end of the large building to the other in the following minutes, fetching bandages, dressings, ragnaid, and – by the time they were getting the situation under control and she realized her exact state of dress, a fresh shirt.

After the two Gallians had finished treating the bullet wound to their satisfaction, all three of them coordinated themselves to lift up Celes's unconscious form into one of the beds. However, right after that last effort, she paused, leaning against the linens. Only then did she remember that she too had been on the wrong side of the late Ralf's violence – and every bruise, scrape, and contusion she had suffered chose to make its presence known in the rudest way possible.

That, added with every other experience of the past few days, was too much for her. Even as she felt herself collapsing into the bed, careful guiding hands around her helped her in. Unthinkingly, she snuggled closer to the warm mass in the bed – it was so much more comfortable than hanging off the side…

And for a time, there was nothing but sweet oblivion.

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It was not sun on her face, nor was it the scent of breakfast, nor was it a gentle waking touch. What woke her from her dreams was a burning cramp in her side.

Burning was an understatement. It felt like a combination of being shot, stabbed, cut apart, burnt, frozen, and beaten all while she fell through an endless abyss.

She squeezed onto – something – for dear life, a strangled cry escaping her even as she did so. Waves of agony forced tears out from between her scrunched up eyelids; sweat poured from her skin. She thought she tasted blood as she desperately gasped for air, trying to outlast the pain. It hurt more than Ralf's beating, more than being shot.

Time passed. Perhaps it was a few seconds – or maybe it was a few minutes – or maybe several days, she couldn't tell. There was only pain, throbbing with her pulse, where once there had been comfortable nothingness –

And suddenly it was over. Feeling uncomfortably damp and sticky with perspiration, she opened her eyes.

Slowly, she deduced that in her blind agony, she'd wrapped her arms around Celes's bandaged torso. A tinge of red colored her cheeks when she figured out what she'd been squeezing as if her life depended on it, a tinge of red that blossomed into a full crimson the moment she felt his arms around her as well.

But when she tried to pull away, a small bit of that same pain came wafting back, stopping her attempt at preserving her dignity in its tracks.

"Please, please don't be awake," she whispered, more to herself than to him.

It was not to be. She stiffened the moment she heard him retort, "As if anyone could through _that_." Her selfish grab of his mangled back must have been excruciatingly painful.

Upon a quick shift of her limbs, she realized that she'd curled into a half ball, pressed against the Imperial's upper body. Her hands were clasped together on the small of his back, his arms in a similar position around her.

If she hadn't wanted to die when Ralf was beating her, she surely wanted to now.

Her stiff fingers unwound themselves from each other as she hastily tried to slide away from him – once again, she barely made an inch of progress before rising heat all over her forced her to halt. In fact, that wasn't the only stopping her; Celes's arms stayed resolutely firm. Even if she hadn't been in such poor condition, she doubted she would have been able to escape the situation.

A complicated cocktail of feelings rose in her chest. Something in the back of her head asked if she wanted to escape – if she actually, in fact, wanted to become closer.

However, it became a moot point when Celes did the moving for her, extricating his arms from her and scooting back the couple inches necessary for the situation to become much less awkward.

At least she had her clothes on. Celes only had his underwear – she resolutely affixed her gaze onto his face. Briefly, she had the urge to try and peel his eyeband off again, but then she remembered that the last time she'd tried to see what was truly underneath it, she'd been beaten within an inch of her life.

Her fist clenched to suppress the obsession. If the fates refused to let her find out, she was better off not trying.

"Alright, Isara, I have to ask. What's going to happen now?" Celes's voice was weak and shaky, no better than her own must have sounded.

She could only shake her head. "I don't know," she said, resigned. "It looks like they were believing me, but as for you…"

"I'm still an Imp," he joked lamely. She offered a tight smile in response.

"Ralf…"

"Who's he?"

"The Gallian you just fought." The Gallian who had just been killed. Resolutely, she put the image of Ralf's dead body away. At least, as far as she could tell by the lack of iron scent in the air, that had been cleaned up a long time ago.

"They got him, right?"

She paused, not exactly sure how to respond. "Right," she offered tersely.

"Still got me," he noted, shifting his wounded leg. The blanket piled off to one side, exposing the bandaged tissue. It seemed Halsey and Worrick had done a good job of taking care of it – the wrappings were clean, no blood visible at all on the blank white gauze. "But you?" he suddenly asked in a change of subject. "How are you doing?" Surprised, she looked up to see him scrutinizing her, concerned for her health as opposed to his own. "Just how badly did he hurt you? I'm sorry I didn't wake up earlier, it's my fault –"

"Idiot," she cut off. "Why do you think it's your fault at all?"

"I saw the way he responded to you when we… got captured. You didn't have to fight for me at all, and yet when he attacked me after I bound his hand, you…" he trailed off.

"I what?" she demanded.

"You acted more like a comrade than an enemy."

She paused, brow darkening with frustration. "Celes, you are my _friend_. Get that through your thick skull."

"You don't have to be – "

Thinking fast, she took another angle. "Celes, you wouldn't deny a lady's wishes, would you?"

Just as she had suspected, he was struck speechless. That was good enough for her. "Friends, then," she offered pleasantly, casually uncurling her limbs from their balled-up position, offering her hand up to him.

The Imperial pinched his lips together, but gave in; cracking a smile, he took her hand, shaking it as best as he could in the close proximity. "Friends."

Darcsen she may have been in blood, but Darcsen she would not be named. She would return his kindness with her own.

Now all she had to do to finish was get him out alive.

Suddenly, Celes flushed to match her own action a minute ago, turning his head upwards resolutely – only then did she realize just what his superior position meant for his view, and she shifted to conceal herself a little more fully. She might have been wearing a jacket, but when unbuttoned –

"I think I can sit up," he mused. Before she could protest that he had been through worse than she had, he followed up on his words, propping himself up on his elbows.

That was as far as he got – an exclamation of pain escaped his lips the moment he tried to go any further. Tentatively, she suggested, "You really shouldn't –"

Deaf to her pleas, he tried again. Without thinking, she rose to her knees, offered her hands that were immediately taken, and dragged her weight back, using gravity to pull him upright. When she scrambled back up to put herself in the same position as him, a thought pulled at her mind – hadn't moving at all caused debilitating pain just a little bit earlier?

She wasn't going to argue with the results, though, she decided as she settled her legs into a slightly more comfortable position, immediately dealing with the problem of her open jacket with a few efficient movements.

"Get me out of bed," he ordered.

"Not a chance," she retorted back. "I may have gotten you to sit up, but walking around is not something you're going to do on that leg."

He frowned. "Bed is boring. I'm supposed to be the doctor here," he joked.

Wits dancing as fast as they could, she rebutted, "I'm not your doctor, I'm your nurse –" Only when the words came out of the sentence came off sounding more personal than she intended, not the factual statement she had planned it to be.

Celes took the statement at face value, fortunately. "Then stay with me."

The statement took her aback, as she asked, "Just why do I have to stay here?"

"Doctor's orders. I saw the bruises, Isara, don't try to hide them from me."

"I have to –" _I have to talk with the Gallian brass, try to get you out –_

"Arguing while you're in that condition is not going to be successful as long as you look like that, Isara," he pointed out. More benevolently, he added, "Now get us all something to eat. I'm starving, and you should be too."

She opened her mouth to argue, but her stomach took the opportunity to disagree with her thoughts with a long, embarrassing growl. Off balance, she could only nod to Celes as she slipped out of the bed, tottering carefully towards the building's kitchen.

Indeed, it didn't hurt at all to move. The thought made her smile even as she prepared two trays of hot breakfast – fresh this time, as she cracked open fresh eggs and fried toast from a loaf of bread. She refused to take the easy way out and simply open some rations if someone had asked her to prepare a meal, if the supplies, equipment, and time were readily available. As she worked, Celes struck up a shouting conversation with her about the slang used in her occupation, such as the earlier "a bit" expression that had confused him so.

Even when she returned, they kept the conversation going, moving into his area of expertise this time, where she learned more about the complications of ragnaid overuse. Proudly, she told him of her earlier treating of his wounds, where she had ignored the steadfast discoloration of the bruises, knowing that the wounds had healed – his bright, enthusiastic face when she told him that was worth any price.

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**Slowly, I'm having these two characters orbit closer towards each other… I hope it doesn't come across as heavy handed.**

**But next up: Halsey and Worrick return with some news… breaking their little moment of happiness. Don't worry, though; escape from this dreary camp is in sight!**


	37. Reversal of Fortunes

**Cloner4000: "Report" is another word for the sound a firearm makes. It's kind of uncommon, but as a war story I hoped more people would recognize it. Oops. Still, if it makes you feel better, consider my use of the word a complement to you. :p**

**And now the voice of the Gallian army, Halsey and Worrick (yes, the grammar is right, they act in unison) comes to inform our heroes of the (bad) news. Oh dear…**

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Breakfast was long over, as was lunch. Conversation ebbed and flowed; right now it was in the ebbed position. If she heard about how to properly suture a bullet wound one more time, she was going to have an aneurysm – in fact, she'd even learned that word from him, a blood vessel that had swelled to a dangerously large (and thin) size due to high blood pressure, which she was certainly developing as the conversation had grew more and more strained. Now they were back to silence once again.

Head pillowed on an empty section of bed, Isara stared at the wooden panels of the ceiling, absently tracing the wires and plumbing from their sources from the walls to their logical conclusions at light bulbs and sinks. There were no windows in the room, although a clock on the wall claimed the time to be early afternoon.

She still refused to let him get out of bed – even with copious application of ragnaid, the fact of the matter remained that he had had his ribs and arm broken, whole body bruised all over by punches, kicks and a collapsing building, back slashed by broken glass, and thigh shot through by a handgun. She'd never known anyone else so blind to their injuries – were all Imperials as implacable as he was?

Somehow, she doubted that.

He returned the favor by refusing to let her go anywhere out of earshot; the first time she had tried to sneak out, he'd called her name almost immediately, accusing her of such.

As much as she wanted to leave, though, she only obeyed his orders for one main reason now: the moment she left was the moment that he forced himself out of bed. With the shifty Imperial _and_ Darcsen hating doctor the only other person she could hope to call at this time, she decided it was in her – their – best interest to stick together.

Minutes continued to slip by. He would shift a leg – she would reposition an arm. The silence grew strained – the conversation started anew, this time about military structures. For some reason, even though each of them had personally met each other's officers already, and had even chatted on relatively easy terms, both of them refused to use their names. Welkin and Alicia were referred to as "our lieutenant" and "our sergeant", respectively, while Celes talked about his own superior in the same terms. Surprisingly, she learned that Imperial units, for the most part, only had a single officer above corporal, ranging from a sergeant to a colonel depending on the amount of soldiers under the man's command – specifically a man, for the army strictly enforced the gender barrier. She could see why; she doubted that many women could bear the weight of the heavy Imperial armor on a regular basis, even the stronger ones. A few might, but then there was the problem of fitting the uniforms, which was a crippling problem when it came to metal plating – just like the Gallian army, they simply didn't spare the resources to try, which was quite justified: while armor-woven cloth might stretch a bit awkwardly, metal didn't stretch at all.

It was when they came to the subject of just whether or not a unisex uniform could be made, either of cloth or armor that the bearers of news came in the forms of Halsey and Worrick, trudging into the room like harbingers of doom.

Almost guiltily, Isara removed herself from her comfortable position – leaning against the side of Celes's bed – and scrambled into a pseudo-attention. The movement surprised her by worming out twinges of pain from her joints and muscles; evidently, she wasn't all better. Celes, still bound in bandages, did his best to show his respect by sitting up a little straighter and raising his chin. It was a little thing, yet it obviously cost him a lot of his energy. Yet neither of the regulars showed any sign that they found the sudden change of demeanor strange. The same expression stayed resolutely painted on both of their faces, grim and determined.

Isara's heart fell to somewhere around the vicinity of her knees. "Sir?" she asked, ostensibly directed at Worrick but truly to both of them. Hypotheses began running through her mind, none of them promising.

"Miss Gunther, I am sorry." The sergeant's words were stilted and emotionless, even as he reached for his sidearm at his belt. Before she could protest, it was pointed in Celes's direction in a statement that said everything she needed to know.

Desperately, she flicked her eyes to Halsey, hoping that this wasn't what she thought it was – but his weapon was out as well, pointed in exactly the same direction. "We have our orders straight from Colonel Nicholas himself," the blonde said in a dead voice. "Resisting a member of the Gallian armed forces is not to be tolerated. The Imperial is to be executed at sunrise tomorrow, as an example to those who would dare oppose the might of Gallia's army."

With nowhere left to turn, she glanced behind her at Celes – he had adopted the same blank look as both of his captors. "I understand, sirs," he said with a nod, words hollow, almost mocking. "I assume you will be taking me back to my cell?"

"Yes," affirmed Worrick.

Isara could only stand in despair as she watched the Imperial – her charge, her _friend_ – painfully pull back the sheets and climb out of the bed, each step wobbly and uncertain. Slowly, he raised his arms into a semblance of a surrendering position, moving towards the door at the speed of a crawl.

"Am I to walk back through your camp in this state of dress?" he said wearily.

"Your boots and fatigues are waiting outside," explained the sergeant in the exact same manner. Lowering his weapon – but still keeping it in his hand - he proceeded to lead his prisoner back. Isara opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment Celes looked back, shaking his head in a solemn "No."

Her heart died as she watched him walk out of her life into death.

Halsey had stayed in the room, but unlike his superior had holstered his weapon completely. "I'm sorry it has to be this way," he consoled, emotion starting to recolor his voice.

The Darcsen had nothing but disdain for him. "No. No, you don't."

"Eh?"

"You didn't even try, did you?"

The blonde sighed, and walked over to chair, throwing himself into it. Every movement of his body spoke of resignation. "We pulled every string we could to keep him in prison, but we _are_ at war," he explained. "If Colonel Nicholas gives the order here, there's nothing we can do."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." He paused. "I'll tell you this, though: enough people were witnesses to Ralf's initial outburst to be sympathetic to your friend." She nodded darkly, not seeing the point. "The stories have spread through the camp like wildfire, and almost every single one of us would be said to watch this man be killed on an officer's whim, anyways."

She nodded, waiting for him to continue. "Most of the regulars really don't like the Colonel, anyways, and plenty of the non-commissioned officers – including us – want a way to get back at commissioned brass," he finished.

"You aren't suggesting – " In an armed camp of trained soldiers?

"Firstly, remember – we can do a little bit, but we can't do anything that risks our lives. We aren't that friendly," he admitted.

"Of course!" she burst out. "Get to the point!"

"Now you tell me something, Corporal Isara Gunther. How heavily do you weigh that identity against your friend's life?"

Briefly she thought of the Edelweiss, of Welkin and Alicia, of Bruhl taken by the Empire. She compared it to the feats Celes had performed for her, the kindness he had shown, the absolute betrayal of his trust as a friend if she did nothing.

There was no contest.

"Not at all," she declared.

Halsey rose to his feet with a glint in his eye, determination giving his steps toward her a solid pace on the floor. "Come with me. I think we can work something out."

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**Originally, I had them do a large planning sequence. Then I realize that as the reader, that kills ALL the drama for you guys. It doesn't affect me because I know what's going to happen, but it made the story a lot lamer than it should be.**

**Yes, this may seem unrealistic, but remember – I'm trying to emphasize that the brass are heavily disliked by most, and that most of the grunts disagree with them. A lot of them have a sense of personal honor **


	38. Chapter 8: A New Outlook

**So, I'm behind due to MAJOR writing suction, in addition to some recent heavy work – good lord, its hard to organize people effectively. Basically… I wrote a lot, then looked at it all, said, "Good god, is this really necessary?" but kept at it. Eventually, I ended up with a healthy dozen pages of prolonged escape.**

**Problem is, the writing's been at such a high stress level for so long that reading it no longer carries a sense of urgency.**

**So now, for the fabled "leave the details to vague allusions and leave the rest to the reader's imagination, because surely they'll be much cooler in the reader's heads than in my words!"**

**This may seem like a cop-out, but truly, I tried. It's just that no amount of good writing could dig me out of the pit I let myself get into.**

**So now, we have a change of pace, as I attempt to drop you into the world Isara and Celes exist in now…**

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"Isara! I'm back!"

To any other ear, from any other mouth, it would have sounded like an exhausted husband coming back home to a faithful wife. Of course, such a situation would raise no small amount of eyebrows, given the people involved.

For these two people, such calling was not borne out of affection, but out of necessity.

Celes threw his arms forward one last time before letting gloved hands rest gently on the spinning rubber, slowing himself to a halt in front of the door. Breath misting in the cold air, but smiling triumphantly, he let the perspiration from his exertions bead on his brow. Let her see them; he wanted her to.

He hadn't used the motors today – again. Isara was going to have a fit – again. He'd pull his medical knowledge and claim that it was better this way – again – and she'd go sulk for a little bit about new inventions being ignored – again.

For once, there was a sense of familiarity forming. Absently, he wondered just how long they would get to stay here.

A minute crawled by, but the ex-trooper felt no impatience at all. Sometimes, he'd have to wait a whole hour for her to finish whatever she was working on, too deep in machinery and small parts to extricate herself – or too engrossed to care. For her, there was little difference; one meant the other.

Fortunately, this was not one of those days. He heard the thump of running boots, and, seconds later, saw Isara – his savior, his comrade, his _friend_ – shoulder open the rough wooden garage's side door, a rush of deliciously warm air escaping into the frigid environment.

The reason she had shouldered it open was obvious the moment she arranged herself in the doorway, leaning against the frame while keeping the door open with a foot. A rough assortment of parts – obviously picked up from the latest scrap run around the village – were still pooled in her shawl, which she held in front of her with two hands to form a bowl of sorts. If it had been her favored Darcsen pattern, she never would have treated it to such abuse, but this was plain canvas, more for a familiar weight on her shoulders than actual tradition.

Of course, her pride of her heritage was hardly extinguished yet. The replacement for the one lost somewhere underneath a house in Lia was already half-woven on a loom inside – borrowed from a sympathetic neighbor of the unnamed village they were in now.

Celes avoided eye contact for the time being, instead pointedly turning his attention to the mound of scrap with a resigned eye. "Isara, the entire point of you coming down is to hand me the crutches right inside the door because I don't fit. If you're holding that – "

"Yes, yes, yes –" she grumbled, and just like that, she fled, leaving him wondering as to why she had bothered greeting him the first place.

There was the sound of running on concrete once more. Deeper inside the building, metal scraped on metal before landing with the dull thunk of wood, followed by another set of footsteps, and this time, she opened the door in a more civilized manner, finely crafted crutches in hand.

She'd made them for him the first chance she'd gotten, which was to say a long time after their escape from the Gallian army's encampment, because that truly had been the first real rest they'd gotten – dodging the eastern war front had been easy enough, but getting past border patrols and security checkpoints had been a month of pure hell. Hopefully, this respite would last.

With a few steps forward, she wordlessly offered him his supports with a bare smile, continuing the ritual that had been established over the past three weeks, longer than any temporary hideout they'd had in the Empire, much less Gallia. Returning her pleasant expression, he quickly stripped off his gloves before reaching up to grab them, pulling himself out of his seat.

A wheelchair. A sign of absolute disability, it was the final insult one could pay a soldier who was used to being battle-ready and combat-fit at any given time. It was a good thing that he'd sworn that off a long time ago, the moment the Imperial machine refused to let Isara travel in peace.

As he worked the crutches into a position where he could move unaided, she leant against the doorframe once more, waiting for him to finish – scrutinizing him. Celes made no attempt to hide the sweat stains around his collar, the red of heat coloring his face, or the way he was breathing much harder than someone cruising in a ragnite-powered chair should have been.

This time, though, she simply gave a dissatisfied grunt and found something more interesting on the planks of the ceiling. She'd accepted his insistence of not relying on the motor. Victory.

With a final wiggle, he propped himself up and took a step with his left foot, swinging himself on the crutches instead of following with his right. That leg was in no condition to support his weight – not only did it have a not-so-old bullet wound in the thigh, the kneecap had been blown out only a week before they'd made it to this most recent haven when an Imperial guardsman took offense to his admittedly weak alibi of deporting a Darcsen across the border, a wound that no amount of ragnaid, even if they had had enough to splurge on it, could heal without intensive surgery. It was a good thing Isara had been watching out for him, so that the guard couldn't finish the job with a round to the head; a solid wrench to the skull later, they had merrily sped off, at least as merrily as one could with a man screaming in pain in the sidecar.

Just then, Celes noticed something. Isara had smugly handed him his crutches with her _right_ hand. That realization made him want to laugh – she thought she was resisting him, but in reality she was playing right into his hands. Their entire trek through the Empire had been punctuated with constant chatter about her wound: about how she shouldn't have been steering the bike with her abused shoulder, Isara rebutting that he could hardly work the clutch with his lame leg. In the end, she'd won that argument when he'd lost the kneecap, although he'd insisted that it didn't count due to "outside interference". For the most part, he'd ordered her to rest the arm, but after last night's inspection of the wound, he decided that it was now the time to reverse the order and exercise it instead. He simply hadn't told her yet, intending to spring the surprise on her when she least expected it.

Oh, the games they played. They were like two bickering children.

She took a step back to let him through the doorway into the garage, closing and latching the door shut behind him. Briefly, he let his gaze flicker over her form. More than one she'd hurt something without telling him after banging a limb after a scuffle with a local authority or cutting herself on a sharp edge while working; as a result, he'd learned to always check her every time he saw her.

There was also the added benefit of her sometimes being an extremely restful place to let his eyes rest. Today, she was in pristine condition. As she walked back into the middle of the garage – slowly, to let him keep pace – her legs and feet kept a steady rhythm, her torso at a normal angle while her arms and neck seemingly floating with her body, such was the grace she exhibited, without the roughness of fatigue or injury. After so many days of calm, she'd been able to fully take care of herself, and regain some measure of beauty; she made the worn, grease-stained coverall look like a noblewoman's dress.

Three weeks ago, when they had still been on the run, he would have axed that train of thought the moment it started. The emotional damage that he would have been risking would have been too great, had they become separated. But now, after more than a score of days after the last news of Imperial presence, he let it float through his mind. It was an indulgence he permitted himself to enjoy – surely, he deserved as much after the trials he – _they_ – had been through.

As she sat herself down next to her workbench in the center of the building and got to work determining just what she could do with the scrap piled on top of it, he scanned the rest of the garage. Everything was in place, established in the first week they'd arrived in the hamlet.

The Gallian motorcycle with an attached sidecar that had served them so well during their flight slept underneath a tarp, while the antique Polaris shotgun that had fended off both wolves and an overzealous Gallian border guard lay with a bandolier – fully stocked, as Celes insisted – next to two cots along one side of the building. The sidecar had once been packed with supplies, in case they had to run again, but gradually, as the days rolled by, they'd unpacked most of it, using some but trading most of it, items such as bullets for hunting and ragnoline being hard to come by so far away from urban civilizations – just the way they needed it to be.

Most of the other objects had been scavenged from the rest of the villagers, most prominently the remnants of a blacksmith – a blacksmith! There wasn't a press or machine in the garage that had been pre-manufactured; Isara had had to piece everything together with parts forged and hand-cast with _charcoal_ fueled _clay_ crucibles – there wasn't enough ragnite to be exploited for the mere work, instead being kept for emergency heating for survival – while various devices were powered by improvised ragnite cells and a ragnoline generator. Celes still had a scald on his hand from her latest improvement, metal rails on which a drop forge could be set up on. Hopefully, that would reduce that amount of casting they'd have to do, for the small objects, anyways.

They had a lot of those to do – after all, their presence here wasn't supported by charity. While at first they'd paid for food, necessities, and the use of the building through trading with the village spokesperson, that wasn't viable for any longer than a few days. The moment Isara had noticed them ogling the motorcycle, however, she'd put two and two together and offered her services as a machinist.

Their acceptance – and quality of living – had dramatically increased after that little meeting.

"Celes, can you go prepare another refining crucible?" she called from her seat, not taking her eyes off of her work for one second. "I'd like to finish the drop forge with some bearings. Umana –" that was the spokesperson – "says that they could really use some new metal utensils for the upcoming festival."

The festival, which was supposedly the solitary spot of entertainment for most of the townspeople during the long winter months in the mountains; the unnamed hamlet was mainly self-sustaining through agriculture, producing little in the way of trade goods, so there was little work to do. There was no real name or tradition behind it, unless one counted its consistency of being borne from boredom as a tradition.

That Isara was planning for such an event a full week later brought a smile to his lips. So she was expecting to stay too – that pleased him. It pleased him so much that he decided against complaining that he'd been working for much of the day as well, and instead hobbled immediately to follow her command.

The supplies for the crucibles were all together in a relatively neat pile along the wall – a sealed box of moist clay, with some basic shaping tools and an example stacked on top of the lid. Despite being on crutches, he'd lost no upper body strength, so carefully threading his legs and crutches to bend down and pull everything up was no problem at all. Moving was a bit awkward – he couldn't use either hand to swing his crutches forward - but a lot less than it could have been as he used his armpits to help him walk the two steps back to the bench.

Sliding the gear out in front of him, across from Isara, he continued the ritual, upon which they told each other of their day. "I saw Naru this afternoon."

"Oh, really?" Her expression quirked with amusement, thinking of the old medicine woman that was all the hamlet had had. "That must have been quite a spat," she commiserated.

"Tell me about it," he grumbled, confirming her first impression. "With all the fireplaces in the houses, burns are a commonplace thing. More surprising is how these people deal with the injury – they plaster them with animal fat, of all things!" He knew that in the grand scheme of things he was being hysterical, but such an egregious error made him grind his teeth. "I tried to get her to learn that –"

"You cool it in water, apply ragnaid if necessary, and loosely wrap, yes, yes," she finished for him. Smiling contentedly, she picked at an indescribable hunk of – something – with a tiny tool. "Steel, I think."

He sighed, although his own hands never slowed as they worked the clay into ingot molds for smelting ore into pure metal. There had been a deep pocket of it not too far up the mountainside, and Isara had already enlisted some of the more chronically idle townspeople to drag themselves out and mine some of it out. Many such pockets existed – which was to be expected, given the terrain – but fortunately for the two of them, the hamlet was not turned into an industrial mine cranking out weapons for the Imperial war machine due to the costs involved with setting up in such a remote and treacherous area.

Fortune really did smile on them by providing such a perfect place to winter.

Coughing softly, more to catch her attention than to clear his throat, he brought up a more sensitive subject. "It's too bad we couldn't have stayed in Gallia."

Immediately, she stopped her tinkering and snapped her eyes to his own, surprised by the conversation. "Yes, it is," she offered tentatively.

"Do you think they –"

"I'm sure Welkin, Alicia, and the rest of Squad 7 are still waiting for me to come back," she cut off rudely. A more intelligent man would cease the line of questioning, but he pressed on blindly anyways.

"Isara, I really don't think that report would have made it through to him."

"Oh really? And why not?"

He chuckled darkly. "If I recall correctly, _you_ were the one who made such a ruckus rescuing."

Immediately, she flushed red, determinedly returning to her work to avoid his gaze. Interesting. He hadn't expected that reaction. "It was really all Halsey and Worrick," she said. It was an obvious lie; he'd learned that while she could lie well enough under pressure from someone they thought an enemy, such as a border guard, she fell apart in front of him. It was merely one of the many things that he found endearing about her.

"Maybe they spread the word to not resist," he mused, thinking of how trained soldiers had literally jumped out of their way despite being armed and perfectly capable of stopping them, "but who made the smoke rounds that coated the entire parade ground?" That had been instrumental in preventing any of the brass, all calm and dignified from their watching points in guard towers, from seeing the exact events. It had also saved them from any possible machine gun fire from the same towers while they were still within the camp.

"I perfected the recipe for… Marberry," she mumbled, embarassed. "It was no big deal to make a few with all the ammunition in the camp as materials."

A shiver ran down his spine – he still had trouble believing that she had been piloting the deadly weapon that day, although he wondered if the thing was out of commission now, without a mechanic. Guiltily, he hoped so. "Fine, then, but who was driving the bike?"

She'd come out of the clouds like a bat out of hell, mask over her face and eyes to protect her from the choking miasma. However, he'd still recognized her immediately as the only woman, especially the only Darcsen woman, in the base, and had unhesitatingly boarded the sidecar – no mean feat while in ropes – putting all his trust into her hands.

She hadn't disappointed.

With the evidence of her daring stunt resting in the same room as them, there was little she could do to refute the truth. She blushed even hotter, if that were possible, and ducked her head down out of sight.

Satisfied, he drove his point home. "Isara, whatever case you had, you dissolved the moment you threw your lot in with me."

"I know."

"Then how can you still think…" He didn't have to finish the sentence.

"I have faith."

The answer took him off guard, but he quickly recovered, squaring his jaw before opening it to argue. "Faith? What has faith ever done for people?"

"It leaves them open to the possibility of good things, and gives them courage to fight on through their hardships." As she spoke, a smile grew on her face, as if she was personally familiar with these words.

"Faith is little more than an idealistic fallacy, which can fool people into wasting their lives for nothing."

Isara's smile disappeared as fast as his had. "I'm surprised that you of all people, Celes, find the idea of faith so distasteful."

"And why is that? I was on the front, if you remember, Isara. I couldn't put my faith in anyone surviving." His expression grew darker and darker as he continued. "Blind faith in my comrades would have killed me more than once, and if they had had faith in me – " his hands started shaking; to disguise the fact, he buried them into the clay – "when I couldn't pull the trigger on another human, they would have died."

His unease failed to go by her unnoticed – expression suddenly softening, she put down the piece of scrap she had been holding and reached across the table. He flinched, almost cringing away, but she moved quickly, snatching his hand with her own, pressing it tightly with her fingers, boring into him with those deep dark eyes of hers.

"But those same men… when you treated them, there was nothing they could do except put their faith in you."

"No, they –" He cut the thought short, realizing it was a stupid argument. How could a mortally wounded man, much less an unconscious one, help his doctor treat him?

For a few moments, they sat together, hands clasped across the table. Celes stayed still, unsure of just what to say. Furtively, he enjoyed the contact of her fingers locked with his. Perhaps he'd say as much during the festival –

They'd have to get there first. Almost simultaneously, both of them pulled their hands away and hastily dug them back into their work. Celes bashfully turned his head downwards, pretending to be at the tricky part of forming the crucible, but despite his efforts, still saw enough to notice that Isara had acted in the exact same manner.

They had had an interesting time together, and the upcoming festival only promised more of the same. For so long, interesting had meant dangerous – but now, here in Fhirald, it happily seemed to have no other meaning.

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**Let the fluff begin, so that we can see our heroes in a non-combat situation. That is all.**


	39. Fhiraldian History Lesson

**It's exposition time! Also, some atmosphere, and some character development/fluff. I'm at band camp right now, so I'm seriously strapped for time – but hopefully, this will be impressive enough… the history wasn't hard to write, and the character-to-character dialogue is simplistic, instead mainly being spoken through body language, histories, and small actions – after all, what does it say of a Gallian militiawoman to be caring for an Imperial soldier?**

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The next morning, the two of them traveled in silence down the winding dirt road from their side by side. Cold winter air swept through bare, wind-stripped trees spotted the mountains around them, mountains that prevented them from seeing any further than a few hundred feet in any given direction at a time, giving the romantic impression of being far, far away from civilization.

The truth was much less picturesque. A mere three minutes' travel – Isara walking, Celes determinedly wheeling himself up and down the slopes with his own hands – brought them into view of the closest cabin, a wood-sided building of the same type of construction as their own home for the time being. It was of a modest size, to be expected from a farmer, with smoke lazily drifting from its single chimney. There was no activity outside in the yard, but that was to be expected given the time of year. If not in the cabin itself, the family would be in the village center for something slightly more entertaining to do, or out in the wilds gathering supplies, more out of boredom than necessity.

As they continued towards the village center, they passed by several similar buildings. Fallow fields that would be growing food crops – not cash crops, given their distance from civilization – could be seen terraced into the mountainsides.

"Really, Celes," Isara finally asked, "do you know why the Empire invaded Fhirald in the first place? It seems so… empty."

"Just the border of Fhirald," he said brusquely, saving his air for movement. Due to the heavy-duty construction of the wheelchair, although he never had to worry about getting stuck or flipping, it added a lot of weight compared to those found in hospitals. Combined with the weight of the unused motors, he literally struggled with every stroke – but he refused to let Isara push him. "Interior is more fertile, but mainly good industry."

"Industry? Just what does Fhirald have?" she asked curiously.

"Metal ores everywhere. Not much ragnite, though."

"Really? Everywhere?"

"Everywhere," he confirmed. "Hills and mountains, iron, copper, tin… everything."

She nodded, thinking on how she had been acquiring her ore locally. "They don't mine the mountains, though."

"Why, when hills…" He broke off, gasping for air, although the broken statement was enough to confirm her question. He'd stayed silent before because he didn't have air to talk with – even this much was too much.

Isara looked at him with a judging eye, then suddenly stopped in her tracks. Before Celes could stop with her, she'd grabbed the two handles and started pushing, the sudden change in speed throwing him back into his seat.

"Hey…!"

"You can't talk and push yourslef the same time," she said harshly. "I need to learn more about this place if we're going to stay here any longer."

He turned back and scowled at her, still unable to piece together full sentences. "Come on… later?"

"You'll look bad if you look so flustered going into town as well," she explained, a bit sheepishly, casting her eyes downward.

Celes resignedly sat himself back down, although his furrowed brow showed her that he still wasn't pleased about the situation. "I'll look like someone who can't take care of himself if you push me in."

"Wasn't it the same with the motor?"

That comment made him turn back and scowl again. "What do you get out of it?" he demanded.

"… I want to."

Had he not instantly spun forward in his own embarassment, he would have caught the flush of her cheeks. "Damn you," he muttered, albeit in a good-natured way. Before she could be offended, he explained, "Playing the one card I can't refuse."

The admission almost made her trip over her own feet, but she recovered, smiling. "Anyways," she said hastily, changing the subject, "more about Fhirald."

"The people are, for the most part, spirited, almost arrogant, independent, risk-takers… and kind of masochistic."

"... I kind of noticed that," she offered, thinking of how long it had taken for people to begrudgingly let her pick through their _scrap_, even when none of them had known how to utilize it anyways. Some of them had even been throwing away easily repairable devices that could have been fixed by any one with an elementary understanding of ragnite technology.

He smiled, although she couldn't see. "Apparently, according to Lieutenant Karst – " A thousand thoughts ran through his head, doubting his decision to desert, but who cared? He was dead to them, anyways – "it made the Fhirald campaign a real meat grinder. Let's just say that when every person down to the child is willing to resist an invader, weighing their life against those of the Empire's soldiers and always finding it in favor of them –"

"Was it always?" She found that hard to believe. "You said there wasn't much ragnite. Ragnite ordnance, ragnoline for vehicles, ragnite cells for circuitry… surely the Empire's military was superior in that sector."

Celes nodded from his seat, but explained. "Ragnite ordnance isn't useful except in pitched battle, as are heavy vehicles and advanced technology. Fhiraldians don't fight pitched battles, and therefore ragnite is not a particularly large advantage over them. They actually had superior firearms, what with their superior mineral resources – did you know that the weapon we know as the ZM MP was actually a Fhiraldian invention? Zechmeister, or ZM Corp, practically quadrupled in worth after they adopted the design for themselves, once the country was pacified – well, mostly," he added.

Isara made an unhappy noise, still unconvinced. "So, how'd they lose then?"

Celes sighed. "Tactical superiority can still fall victim to the deadweight of bureaucracy. The Fhiraldian military, instead of supporting their irregulars – which consisted of practically everyone – fight their own battles and push out the invader, they tried to create a regular army instead."

"Oh."

"Oh is right. That army, disorganized and less trained than the Imperial one, quickly lost the key and only real battles of the war. A certain General Radi Jaeger – "

Isara paused her steps, mind churning. "Isn't he one of the generals under Maximillian, invading us – Gallia?" she added, almost forgetting that Celes was an Imperial and not from the same country as her. It was silly, she thought, that two people from different nations could end up relying on each other to survive and yet politics ordered them to shoot each other –

"Yes, it is," he said, interrupting her thoughts. "He took control – after much of the less competent brass had gotten themselves killed in those battles – and promptly disbanded the army and returned to irregular action, but by then the Empire had made it too far. Once they made it to the industrial heart of Fhirald and cut off all supplies, the insurgency died, and, formally, Jaeger was captured – although it really was more like him offering himself up."

"Why would he do that?" she asked, picking up the pace once more. Another cabin rolled by, this one with several Fhiraldians doing – something – in the yard, perhaps preparing some decoration for the festival given the gaudy colors involved. Before she could tell, though, trees and then a hillside came between them, and they were moving away.

He smirked, thinking. "He's a bit… perhaps we can say that he should have been six or seven hundred years ago."

"What?" She wrinkled her brow in confusion.

"He has these ideas of how war should be fought. No, not on a physical level with soldiers, or guns, or tanks, but on a moral level. Overall, he did his best to respect and meet with his foe on honorable terms."

"… and he was leading an insurgency?"

The smirk flowered into a full chuckle. "Well, he did his best. The ragnite advantage was what he cited most of the time. And besides, there were plenty of other areas in which he could show honor. Jaeger actually had the Imperial general, Berthold Gregor, at his mercy after a particularly successful raid before the disastrous attempts at an army – speaking of which, that's where Gregor got the leg wound… well, I guess that doesn't matter too much."

"We dropped that bastard into the canyon," Isara growled, perhaps with too much venom to be tactful.

If it wasn't, though, Celes gave no sign, actually agreeing with her. "We heard about that – it was about time. I'd expect nothing less of the Gallian militia."

She felt herself smile a bit sheepishly with pride as he went on giving her the history. "Gregor should have withdrawn after those first defeats, but he blindly and stupidly pressed on anyways. It was the Fhiraldian brass's own meddling that doomed them; they served Gregor's specialty, pitched warfare."

"What happened to Gregor?"

"… um… you killed him?" He was practically giggling – the whole situation seemed a bit too surreal. A Gallian talking with an Imperial about past wars, when the two of them were technically at war right then and there.

She could only laugh with him, but quickly cleared up her point. "No, I mean, before that, but after Fhirald."

"Well, the fact that he won anyways was kept him in power, and gave him several honors to boot. Of course, that gave him a fat head in Gallia… probably got him killed."

Isara sighed, walking a bit faster – the frequency of cabins was increasing, and soon the village center would be in view. "Why are we still talking about a dead man?"

"… you asked?"

"Not really, you just kept on lecturing like a professor who's the head of modern history," she joked again, adopting a sarcastic tone. "Speaking of which," she mused, "how do you know so much about this? You seem to be awfully well versed."

He exhaled sharply, his temper flaring – evidently, the sarcasm had flown right over his head. "I was an Imperial soldier, _Corporal_ Isara Gunther of _Gallia_." She gasped – he hadn't referred her to that before. "If that fact bothers you, you can –"

It was then that their dependence on each other, both past and present, hit him, and he broke off angrily, unable to form a coherent threat. As the village came into view, clusters of rough shops and residences were laid out in random patterns below the two of them from their viewpoint on the side of one of countless hills.

In this view, Isara felt her pace come to a surprised halt. Celes roughly grabbed the wheels of the chair, trying to push himself away from her –

"Wait!" she called. Instinctively, he stopped, turning back, although the cold irritation bordering on full anger in his single eye caught her as well.

"What?" he snapped at her.

For a moment, she just stood there, eyes downcast, cheeks flaming. Celes hissed, "If you've something to say – "

"I don't mind."

That took him by surprise; releasing one wheel, he spun the other to turn himself around. Neither of them had words for a bit, but eventually Isara started to try and explain. "I just – " Just what? She really had nothing to say.

Fortunately, her companion's mood quickly adjusted to hers, as he wheeled himself around once more, obviously embarrassed. "Forget it," he groaned. "Just… get me down there."

"Of course." His acceptance of her favor made her want to hop with glee – but why?

Atmosphere restored, she stepped forward and resumed, taking them into the hamlet together.

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**This is the part where you leave your review about the direction of the story. I'm not going to throw them into any overtly stressful situations for a LONG time, so don't worry. I got sick and tired of that about the same time you did.**

**That being said, I want to hear about where you want to see the characters go. With such richly established (I hope) backgrounds, it would be nice if you threw in your own input…**

**GREEN BUTTON. NOW. HULK SMASH.**


	40. SAFEty

***staggers out of band camp***

**That was amazing, but unfortunately for you guys I had a grand total of zero hours from my last update to today. So now I cram in to make up for it! Don't you feel special? :p**

**Just for the future: after this peaceful interlude in which I get to avoid violence for a good time, I'll be throwing the repercussions of the events of the current war back at them, things like the battle at Naggiar, or Ghirlandio. That'll take me a long time – I'm actually hoping to hear more about Valkyria Chronicles 2 before I make it out of the war, so I know exactly what breaks canon.**

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"On three, then?"

Eyes bleary with pain, but still scowling with determination, the grey-bearded Fhiraldian farmer Napa nodded. His family, consisting of his obviously flustered wife, Gerda, and three terrified children, looked on as Celes kept his hands on the farmer's naked torso and elbow. Napa's arm, tanned both by the elements and his Fhiraldian heritage, was strangely long, and at a peculiar angle, an obvious symptom of injury.

"This is nothing," he growled. "Nothing like the time I cut myself with the scythe on a rock. Just get it over with, Imperial."

Celes indulged himself by puffing his cheeks out with displeasure, but continued anyways. "Then here we go… one… _two_!"

One count ahead of time, Celes pushed as hard as he could, yet with more precision than brute force. Screaming, the farmer felt the joint snap back together, and fell back onto the bed, dazed with pain.

Gerda made an unhappy noise behind him, arms flailing with obvious displeasure. "Just what do you think you're doing?! Are you trying to humiliate him? An underhanded trick, just to cause him more pain? You come in here promising treatment and you give nothing but abuse instead? What was the purpose of that, you quack?" He cringed at that. "Out! Out!"

The moment she began to guide her moving arms to beat him out of the house, Celes decided it was best to explain. Even as he put a crutch between his face and the abuse to fend her off – by the middle to defend, as opposed to swinging from the end to attack – he barked, "Hold it, woman!"

The very husband-like scold halted the matronly woman in her tracks, just as he had hoped. Before Gerda could protest his presumptuous comment and renew her aggression, he thrust into the silence to explain.

"If I let him prepare, he'd only tense the muscles around the joint before I pushed it back in. If that happened, not only would he be in a lot more pain, I might cause permanent damage!" He let the crutch slide back to the ground as he used it to stand back up inside the farmer's cabin. "Where would you be then, without his strong arms in the fields?" That was no empty praise, either – Napa's limbs were like tree trunks, and Celes had no doubt that they had the strength of them, after watching him singlehandedly move barrels that would have taken the Imperial a forklift. "I did the best for all of us, damn the trickery."

The language was harsh, but the message behind it wasn't. Although it took a few seconds for Gerda to realize, realize she did, and in an instant she went from matronly angry to matronly thankful.

Celes wasn't sure which one was worse.

Fortunately, he still had to bind and pad the shoulder injury and rattle off the needed instructions for his care until he fully recovered – the farmer wouldn't be doing any heavy lifting for a while, especially nothing along the lines of moving an entire felled tree by himself. While he certainly had the strength to do so, tripping, twisting, and getting the thing caught on another tree had been his downfall, if one would pardon the pun.

"And stop indulging his strength, _sah_," he berated her, although he made sure to use the Fhiraldian gender-neutral honorific to make the statement less barbed. "I know you're proud you married a strong man, but letting that get to his head causes this."

Her thankfulness drooped, making her look wrathful again, but Celes quickly added in a low voice, "Besides, if you have him ask for just a little help, people get to _see_ him work as well as see the results. Keeping his strength all to your own knowledge isn't exactly going to let people know about him, and be as jealous as they should." He let a cheshire smirk grow across his face. "Isn't that so much better?" he noted in a voice bordering on conspiracy.

One suffocating hug of happiness later, Celes was regretting his decision to give her that idea.

Rescue came in the form of Isara knocking on the door, and the Gerda's sense of courtesy meant that she thankfully had to let go of him and exit the room to answer it. Even as he gratefully collapsed back into his chair, the mechanic came through the door, kindly waving off the woman's attentions.

"No, no, I don't need a drink, I don't need dinner, I was just coming to check up on him," she gently informed the wife, determinedly dodging her embrace to walk into the bedroom in which Celes and the farmer were in.

"Ah, yes, the skilled doctor!" Gerda crowed. "Such skilled hands! Such deep knowledge! Such perfect…"

Such a difference from "quack", he sarcastically added in his head. That was enough of a difference for him, but the sight of Isara's smiling face, starkly contrasted against the dark hair – as opposed to "darkhair", he reminded himself – was a pleasant sight any time of day.

She looked curiously at the man, still out with pain, as if confirming what Celes had told her earlier about being masochistic and headstrong. "How'd it go?" she asked nonchalantly.

He leant back and smiled. "Just fine. Gave him the old 'one-two' treatment."

Isara giggled, letting herself fall into a chair to put her on the same level as him. "Celes! I wasn't aware punching people was part of your job description!"

"Wha – oh." The incongruity of his statement only then struck him, and he broke out into laughter with her. "Come on, you know that was unintended!"

Before they could continue their joke, however, the wife interrupted by doing her best to thank them. It was only after they had both had cups of tea – something Celes enjoyed, although he knew Isara was secretly choking it down without sugar, even if she never gave the slightest hint that it was anything but delicious – that she let them go. His "fee" was nothing more than a basket of food, although she made sure to cram in enough for a week, when all he had asked for was for the day. Not that he minded – the nature of the season meant that all the food that was available would keep without fear of spoilage.

Eventually, they extricated themselves from the house, Celes recovering the wheelchair he had left outside on the main village path – a much better-maintained one than the ones along the hillsides. "So, Celes, how was it?" Isara asked in continuation of their earlier conversation.

Food balanced on his lap, Celes wheeled himself carefully forward, busy fishing his memory. "Napa decided to practice for the festival's weight lifting competition." He grunted a disparaging tone. "Hardly like he needed it, but I suppose he could have used the wood for something. First he chops down a tree – and a pretty big one too – in mere minutes, and then he goes and tries to move the whole thing without even trying to partition it."

"He did, of course," Isara said expectantly.

He turned his head and nodded to her even as they kept moving forward along the road, flanked on both sides by cabins that sometimes doubled as store fronts. One Fhiraldian man waved to him – he returned it in kind. "Yes he did, but then he goes and bumps into a rock, trips, and dislocates his shoulder." Isara winced, but nodded. "Now he's probably not going to be in any condition to participate in the festival competitions." Napa would have won any competition of strength hands down – now, he would most likely be kept on the sidelines. Celes didn't want to be there when he found that little fact out.

"Speaking of the festival," he continued, "did you get anything useful?"

Isara beamed and nodded exuberantly. "I've just found the perfect thing to act as ballast for the dropforge. You're going to help me carry it!"

Celes groaned. Weeks of being with her told him what that entailed.

**********************************************************************************

It was a grueling trek back, but Celes kept his mouth shut about being used as a packhorse. After all, it wasn't as if she wasn't helping him either.

Still, they must have looked a sight. Isara had manufactured two of what amounted to trailers for the wheelchair to help move larger objects – there was one both in town, in what had become their "office", so to speak, as well as their actual quarters farther away.

The object in question was a huge, antique safe, easily several hundred pounds before whatever was inside of it – and whatever that was, it was heavy. Isara had already gone and picked the lock – its previous owner had no clue where it had come from and therefore lacked a key – but found the door to be stuck shut anyways, probably due to corrosion inside. Taking it as payment as a trade for a new, hastily forged hammer, the huge object could easily be broken apart and recast into a solid shape.

Well, "easily" was relative. The metal, some strange mix of copper and steel, may have been extremely brittle by Isara's standards, but to Celes metal was still metal. Melting it down was out of the question, unless they wanted to spend the entire winter cutting down trees to produce the concentrated heat needed to do so, and heating it would apparently clean out the copious impurities that made it fragile in the first place, so softening it with heat before cutting it apart was out of the question as well.

They'd have to do the job cold, which somehow made him despair. It seemed completely illogical.

"Celes, what do you suppose is in there anyways?" Isara chimed from behind. She was pushing as he wheeled forward, but although they were doing the same amount of work, her ability to use her legs made it significantly easier for her.

He grunted. "I don't know. Something bulky and pointless, I guess." Turning his head back to glare at her, he stated in an almost whining tone, "You couldn't have kept this in town and had some stronger arms do this?"

She gasped theatrically. "Celes, have you taken a look at yourself recently?"

"No, I haven't, Isara," he sighed, almost as dramatically. "There hasn't exactly been a large reflective surface anywhere nearby for me to be a narcissist and admire myself."

Neck starting to hurt, he turned back forward, but not before he caught her smile of humor. "Then you obviously haven't noticed that you _look_ quite strong."

Celes let out a whoosh of air, both from exertion and annoyance. "I don't _feel_ strong at all."

Letting out an impatient noise, she suddenly took an extra step forward out of cadence, essentially giving him an annoyed shove as his chair suddenly flew that distance forward. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Celes," she said in an overly dark voice.

The smile he had been trying to hold back broke free. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm just trying to dodge work."

"Wha –"

His laughter and her subsequent outrage rang throughout the hills all the way back.

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_CLANG!_

The sledgehammer impacted on what Isara had called the "stress point" of the safe with a mighty ring not unlike a church bell. More importantly and very annoyingly, the impact had absolutely no visible effect.

Letting out a breath of exertion, Isara grounded the hammer's end into the earth before tilting the handle towards him – the proper manner to pass a heavy tool.

"You know, Isara," he said as he took the wooden grip and dragged the blunt instrument toward him, "I think this is ridiculous. Aren't I the cripple?"

"Only in your leg," she refuted, glancing significantly towards his right knee. The bullet wound higher up in the thigh would have been giving him some trouble, but it really was the destroyed knee that was the problem. It wasn't as if the muscles wouldn't bend his leg if he absolutely had to, but the grinding of ill-healed bone against bone instantly dropped Celes with pain. To prevent as much from happening accidentally, he'd made a brace around the joint to stop it from moving. In reality, he really didn't need the crutches to move around, but they did make travel much faster than without them. "You aren't at all crippled above your legs, anyways."

"Except in my head," he muttered to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

Hastily, he shouldered the sledgehammer, almost staggering underneath its weight. "Are you sure I can do this?" he asked skeptically. "I mean, there's being chivalrous and helping a lady out, and then there's just plain suicidal…"

"I'll catch you if you fall," she reassured him helpfully.

"Somehow that bothers me more than you asking me to do this," he muttered to himself. Before she could comprehend what he had just said, he raised the hammer into the air above his head. There was pressure on his legs – a lot of pressure – but he ignored it, swinging his arms down –

Damn. He'd unconsciously tried to bend his knees to increase the speed. With the brace, that blocked that particular movement and sent the energy elsewhere – toppling him over sideways. Even as he fell, he made sure to watch the hammer's descent, ensuring that it didn't end it smashing onto his foot.

The sound of the safe splitting apart completely muffled his squawk of indignation when he hit the earth. So she hadn't caught him after all. Liar.

He rolled face-up, cocking his head at her. "I thought you said you –"

He was immediately struck dumb as he watched her laugh harder than she ever had in front of him before. Angrily, he began, "Hey! That's not funny! I could have been seriously –"

She pointed towards the opened safe. Despite himself, he looked – and began to laugh with her.

Inside the metal chunks of the old safe: was yet another safe.

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**Significant plot object is significant. That is all.**


	41. Burning Hands, Burning Hearts

**I experimented with perspectives in this one – it bounces from one to the other to both in no particular order. Tell me if it works or is simply plain confusing, alright?**

**A safe within a safe? Strange. Regardless, our heroes have other matters to attend to…**

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Celes sat in a chair, still chortling a bit to himself as Isara gathered up the shards of metal that surrounded the second safe. Her face was already twisted in a determined expression of curiosity – after immediately giving it a quick examination, she found that the first safe had, while suffering itself, kept this one in near pristine condition. More annoying was the fact that while ostensibly a safe, it had a door – and absolutely no way to get said door open.

Watching her absently slide a finger through the grooves that were the only marks on the unbroken safe, Celes gently reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. "You have your ballast now. Doing anything about it?"

Impatiently, she stopped her examination and hurried away with another armful of metal pieces. "Yes. You have the crucible ready, right?"

He let out a breath of irritation at that, not at her comment but at the memory of that. "If I really have to answer that question, Isara, you're going to let me look at your head."

"No." The response was said with a smile, though. The previous night's refining crucible had been the largest one she'd ordered from him yet – and rightly so, as the ballast for a drop-forge was considerably larger than any metal tool or utensil. Twice, he'd spread the crucible too thin, the first one collapsing before it ever made it to the furnace, the second one rejected by Isara for being unable to withstand molten metal. The refusal wasn't one of animosity or pride, but of expertise, coming off more as a lesson than a rebuke.

It was just one of the many things that Celes found wonderful about her.

Concealing his less modest thoughts with a quick cough, he pulled himself up on his crutches and moved to the "residential" half of their home, setting himself down once again in a chair, but this time a chair at a table. On it, beside a pitcher of water and two cups, was the basket of food they'd received from Gerda.

Even as Isara cleaned up the last pieces – the smallest of which was no larger than his hand – he began to prepare dinner, or at least as much as one could "prepare" food that was, for the most part, already ready to eat. There were some things to be done, though, for additional flavor: slices of ham were thrown into a skillet, a sealed pot of soup heated, and bread toasted. All of this was done on the same "stovetop" that was actually an extension of the furnace near the center of their residence. The thing was perpetually warm, given the long life of the charcoal they both produced and utilized, and at any given moment could be merely stoked with oxygen to reignite. Given that they had refining to do later, anyways, he took the liberty of adding a little more fuel than he normally would for a little bit of cooking.

Ten minutes later, Isara looked up from the filled crucible to see a delicious meal ready to eat, but Celes nowhere in sight – although she knew exactly where he'd be.

With a tired yet pleased smile, she went outside to rinse her hands at the pump that came out of the ground. When she reached for the handle, though, she found that there was already one there.

Beaming, Celes gladly provided the water for her, a small service, but a service nonetheless. When she was done, she did the same for him, wrapping a conveinent towel around the handle to avoid staining her hands needlessly.

When both of them had cleaned themselves off, they moved back inside. Isara made a quick detour to throw a little more fuel on the furnace before sitting herself down beside him. Already, he'd begun work on the humble but filling fare. Wordlessly, she began to do the same. There was no conversation for a time as they ate, both extremely hungry but unwilling to say so to each other, instead pushing work to a later and later hour. Indeed, lunchtime had slipped by unnoticed while they'd been in the village, and breakfast had been little more than a little toast and jam from the previous day's "pay".

And they still had more to do when they finished eating. Inwardly, Isara wondered if they were working too hard, then reminded herself of the upcoming festival. It would be here in only six days, almost five now – and she really wanted to present the villagers with the forge in time for that.

She paused. Did that really mean so much for her? Were they really settling down so permanently?

Inhaling deeply, she began to give the same treatment to her food.

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Normal people would have cringed from the intense heat radiating from the opened door. This wasn't the intense that most people would associate with being to close to a campfire, or perhaps the intense of a flamethrower cascading death within a trench, something that Celes had narrowly avoided on the Federation front.

This was the intense that destroyed not just wood and flesh – this was the metal-purifying intense of a furnace.

Faces set in tense expressions, the two of them guided the crucible forward on what essentially was a giant pair of tongs, each of them holding one handle of the tool. They had to move quickly – the tool's improvised construction of mere iron meant that it would soften quickly and bend soon after entering the hellish heat. Not only that, but the heat would quickly transfer up the tool to damage their leather mitts and, if they were truly slow, their hands.

They'd done this refinement process before – but never with something as large as this. The weight was enough to have them almost panting with effort, and as they moved the object deeper into the fiery depths, the muscles they could use to support the weight rapidly dwindled.

Celes stole a glance at Isara's face right as they finished – it was almost grey, but with what, he couldn't tell. He didn't feel as stressed as she looked, though. He'd been a foot soldier for decent span of time, and he'd been making sure to exercise with the wheelchair. He was also a male; no matter what females might argue about equality, the fact remained that he had a larger frame to support weight with than hers.

Isara let out a gasp of – something that was most certainly not just exertion – right as they finished reaching in, arms at full extension.

Without thinking, Celes pivoted and roughly shouldered Isara away from the tool, grasping her end of the tongs and supporting the weight completely by himself. As she silently stumbled away, he decided it wasn't quite as heavy as he thought it might be; the weight of the second safe inside the first had been, although not the majority of the total weight, a good deal of it.

With a rough shove, he pushed the crucible to its final position and hopped back. Rather, he tried to hop back, but only then recalled his inability to bend his injured knee, instead merely falling backward helplessly like a turtle.

Knee injuries, he decided, while not completely debilitating, were excessively irritating.

Face still taut with – something – Isara kicked the furnace door shut as he rolled away. The heat, while still present, rapidly subsided. When the heavy metal portal sealed with an ominous clunk, she took the opportunity to let out a whimper of agony, hoping that Celes wouldn't notice.

Unfortunately, he did. Instantly, he was on his feet, despite his maimed joint, guiding her with firm but gentle hands to the chair that he'd used before dinner.

"Where?" he asked brusquely.

She shook her head, unwilling to give in. "Did the crucible make it in okay?" she requested, blatantly ignoring his own question.

"Yes –" he started, before shaking his head and continuing, "forget that, Isara, _where_?" He threw off the leather mitts, almost dumping them where he knelt in the earth. Realizing who he was right in front of, he barely corrected himself, dropping the mitts onto her lap – it wasn't dropping a tool onto the ground, and it wasn't as if he was going to leave her until he knew exactly what was wrong.

She shook her head again. "It's nothing. I just felt my grip slipping, and panicked."

He hadn't traveled with her for weeks without discovering many of her characteristics, and her willingness to hide pain was something that he found both endearing and absolutely unbearable. Three times during their travels her bullet wound had pained her to the point of losing consciousness, and yet each time she tried to shrug it off as stress. It had been then he'd decided to excavate the admission of injury any time she appeared pained, because any time she looked like she was in pain, it meant that she'd hurt herself badly enough to break her iron façade, and was serious indeed.

Quickly, he reached for her own mitts; instantly, she pulled her hands away from his. "Celes, stop, you're embarrassing me," she moaned, turning her head to the side. Instead of a healthy red glow of shame, though, her cheeks were pale with shock. Target sighted.

"Hands. Now." When she still refused to respond, he juggled the options available to him in his head. One idea came to mind, inspired by his proximity to a certain part of her body, but he instantly dismissed it as outrageously rude _and_ idiotic. Once again he reached for her hands, his arms circling around her hips to reach them. Even when he grasped firmly on her wrists and pulled, she refused to let him see them.

He sighed. Even as he let go and pulled back, he decided to take the idea he'd had earlier. If it didn't work, at least he would have satisfied a minor urge.

And with that, the palms of his hands descended upon her bosom.

Right before they made contact, she jumped with surprise – shock, really – and instinctively threw her hands forward to defend herself.

Before her mitts could push him away, though, he had scooped them off of her hands and dumped unceremoniously into her lap to rest on top of the first pair. She tried to lay her hands into her lap, but already his hands had closed like vices around her wrists. With a sigh, she gave up the struggle, resigning herself to his care as he scrutinized the injuries.

"Well, damn," he groaned. Letting one hand hold both wrists – a tough job, given his hand's small size – he snatched up one of her mitts, examining it. Upon finding no fault, he threw it back down and grabbed the other one, meant for the right hand.

There it was. The seam between the thumb and the rest of the glove had popped loose underneath the weight of the crucible, and thus there had been a gap in the thick padding for heat to escape through, leaving an area of molten skin and angry red tissue around the same area on her hand.

Snatching up the gloves, he pulled her up and outside through the door, throwing the gloves onto the workbench as they went by it.

Once again, he pumped for her, an icy cold stream to quench the still bubbling flesh. At least she wasn't so passive as to make him kneel down there and push her own hands underneath the stream water. The burn might have hissed with heat, but if it did, Isara's sharp intake of breath and the splash of water against the ground concealed it.

"Yes, yes, I know, it hurts, acknowledge the pain, admit it," he said in a stream of comforting words. "Pain is your body's way of telling you you've been hurt – ignore it, and you only harm yourself further. And when you harm yourself, every one around you feels hurt as well –"

"Shut up," Isara moaned. He accepted it, silently pumping water for another minute. It was ice cold outside, to say nothing about the temperature of the water – the sweat from their exertions and the heat rapidly chilled them.

At the end of that minute, he stopped. Isara slowly came to her feet, eyes rising back to his. For a moment, he felt closer to her than he ever had before –

And then she sneezed. His own followed a mere half second later.

"Get inside," she said in a low voice. He was only too glad to follow her.

Now that the furnace door was closed, the heat inside the building wasn't unbearable, but actually quite pleasant after the cold. "The cots," he ordered, and as she made her shaky way towards them to sit, he grabbed his duffel from the wall – still in one piece after everything it'd been through – and hunted inside of it for what he needed. Meanwhile, Isara resolutely kept her eyes on the floor, unwilling to pay Celes the slightest bit of attention.

She regretted doing so when the cool relief of ragnaid washed over her burn.

She knew better than to snatch her injury away from him and waste the precious resource, but she flicked her gaze towards his face, affixing him with a glare meant to shame him. It failed, seeing as he was concentrating on guiding the ragnaid wand with all the precision that he had, which was to say a great deal. Unable to squat with his injured knee, he'd simply sat right beside her. Their shoulders were pressed against each other, but she made no comment – it'd simply pull attention to his disability.

"You're wasting that," she muttered.

"No, I'm not," came his response, just as low.

"It's just a burn."

"Just?"

"It'll heal on its own."

He flipped his gaze up, eyes intense. "Do you want to keep using your hand?"

That question shocked her, forcing a gasp out of her lungs. "Y-yes."

His singular visible eye glanced back down. "I'm afraid for the tendons near the joint. I'm no hand surgeon, but I can say that they most certainly didn't escape undamaged. I guess ragnaid isn't necessary… in the same way that oxygen isn't necessary."

The analogy, although absurd, still shamed her. Her want – no, need – to remain independent, to not trouble others with her problems, still beat inside of her. Rapidly, she changed the subject as he expertly wrapped the wound, unable to linger on the thought. "We're really a bunch of cripples, aren't we?" she joked.

He grunted. "That's not funny." Even so, he looked down at his leg, distracted. "Still, you did do a good job on that."

Her hand, as if recalling the experience, rested itself on the brace. "Of course, I'm not too much better off."

His own hand laid itself right above her old bullet wound. "Your shoulder –"

"Your thigh –"

His hand closed over her freshly bandaged one. "Your hand –"

Heart racing, she continued the one-upping. Her free hand rose to his face, touching the cloth band. "Your eye," she wondered aloud, tilting her face close to his to examine it. Again she had the urge to pull it up and see exactly what lay behind it.

He had no response. What was he supposed to say? That it wasn't at all injured, and that it was, right now, treated to a lovely view down her coverall?

Instantly, he rebuked himself. That sort of statement would get his head put on a pike in seconds.

Regardless of his intentions, both of them suddenly reflected on their current position. His hands were on her – her hands were on him. Their faces were merely inches apart. Their _lips_ were merely inches apart.

Suddenly, it seemed that rising and leaving was the best idea for him, before something else of his did for him.

Quickly, he pulled away from her and quickly moving to the work side of their home, busying himself in cleaning. Indulging himself at this time was a bad idea. "I'll finish up here," he called to her, a little too loudly.

Too disturbed herself to protest, she sat frozen on her cot, practically traumatized by what she had just felt – the same feeling she got when a piece of machinery was about to break, or explode. "I'll handle the fueling of the furnace, then –"

"No need, I'll handle that myself!" he chimed in, cutting her off. "Go get some rest, you'll need it if that burn's to heal." Pointedly, he turned his back to her, their silent signal for the other to

You're pushing me away, she thought as she carefully tottered to one side of the room to change into her sleeping clothes, but in the end, she decided that was best for the moment. It was safer that way.

At least until she knew exactly what to think of Celes.

When she lay her head back against the pillow, she turned one last time to check on Celes. Back still turned, he worked at the rotary bellows of the furnace enthusiastically – excessively so. "You're just as bothered as I am," she murmured to herself.

But it was true that she was in pain, and that she was tired. Celes knew how long to keep the fire burning – she'd taught him that much. Her eyes closed as she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the whoosh of the furnace.

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**Shameless shipping is shameless. And I got to make my first risqué comment. That's got to be worth something, right?**

**In any case, as our protagonists continue, expect things to get progressively more and more awkward. Just how risqué do you guys think the writing should get? Trust me when I say it could easily go, *ahem*, "all the way", but if you think that would detract from the story, then I can leave things at vague implications. (Also, trust me when I say that any explicit wording would **_**not**_** be empty pleasuring, but be interspersed with meaning.) **

**This is a job for the review button down there! Now help stop unemployment across the internet and give it a job!**


	42. Chapter 9: Busywork

**DC20: I suppose the distinction between "sailor" and "f---ing sailor" is pretty important, eh? :p Back on topic, I'll start bumping up the age level of the story, but do tell me if it raises the eyebrow a little too high/seems overly contrived.**

**After such an awkward situation, what are our protagonists going to do with each other? The answer is probably one that most have done before…**

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Four days.

That was her first thought when she woke from her sleep. Laying on the cot, she smiled to herself. She hadn't counted the days to something since she'd been a little girl. It was a nice feeling, she decided as she grabbed the covers, planning on throwing them off like the adolescent she felt like.

The feeling she got when she tried to pull up the blankets was anything but nice.

Wincing, she felt her right hand instinctively snap open and recoil away from the cloth. A soft weight was around it – a bandage. For a moment, she regarded her own hand, unable to comprehend the reason for the medical treatment.

The weight of the previous night's events hit her like a freight train.

With a groan, she let her hand fall back onto her chest, and simply stared upwards into morning shadows of the rafters. She indulged in a moment of angst, acknowledging her pains, both physical and emotional.

A mere minute later, though, she decided such actions really weren't worth her time, and got up to start her morning routine.

"Celes?" she asked, absent-mindedly. Silence answered her, and she let out a breath – almost a miniature sigh – of irritation. She'd gotten used to him struggling awake in the mornings, though, so she began the next step, walking the four or so paces needed to get to his own cot –

It was empty and already made. Isara blinked in consternation.

Seconds later, she burst through the door, frantically searching outside for Celes; there was nobody outside, which sent her scurrying back inside. Up, down, left, right –

She took a deep breath. "Stop," she told herself. "What are you doing?"

Looking for Celes.

"Nothing's happened to him."

Yeah, just like that time in the first and last Imperial town, where "nothing" had been detainment by the Gestapo of the Darcsen ghetto they'd hidden in. That had been quite the scare.

"He probably left a note."

Go back inside, then, and find it.

"Why is the sun so high?"

It's afternoon already, you dolt.

With a puff of annoyance, she realized that Celes had let her sleep in. Forget the injury, that forge had to be completed in four days!

The cold wind blew into the open door, chilling her through the loose shirt and shorts she wore, and she reminded herself that she couldn't get anything done without eating or changing first. Turning on her heel, she made good on that thought.

As she changed into a working coverall, she looked around in the normal locations that Celes left notes in. She'd already looked at his cot and the door, but there was neither one on the hook where he left his bag and coat, nor on the table they dined on. It was unlike him to leave without notice, ever since the ghetto incident.

Sighing as she buttered a slice of bread, warmed on the latent heat of the furnace, she forced herself to relax. It had been so calm and tranquil for their stay, it might just be that he decided that there was no need.

Unless of course, something had happened.

With a sigh, she forced that thought out of her mind, and stuffed the bread into her mouth. If something had happened, one of the villagers would have informed her. That was the advantage of having made friends here.

After she finished her meal – eventually adding some of the remaining ham and soup from last night to round it out – she took a good look at the state of their workshop. Celes had obviously taken the time to extract the drop forge ballast from the furnace, without her help, in the morning before she'd awoken; the crucible, now filled with a single mass of metal, slept quietly on the earthen floor a few yards away from the furnace door.

"You're a chivalrous fool," she grumbled to an imaginary image of him, although she said it with a smile. With her hand in its current state, it wasn't as if she'd be much of a help anyways. She shook the burnt hand again. It didn't even throb, as long as she avoided pressing it against anything, and that much was obvious.

With yet another sigh – something about the morning inspired them in bulk – she walked over to the workshop half of the building, and got to work.

The first thing she'd tackle was that faulty mitt. Although ostensibly one-size-fits-all, Celes had had to have her trim a set to fit his smaller hands. That his hands had been smaller than hers had been a source of great embarrassment for him, but she had let it slide. "You need small hands to get into all those small places of the body, anyways," she'd joked.

"As if your own machines don't have small places either," he'd insisted on grumbling.

Of course, the mitt she hadn't worked on had turned out to be the faulty one, but Isara smiled at the memory regardless. Celes really was –

A fortunate sneeze cut off that train of thought. Shaking her head to clear her mind, she snatched up the damaged glove on the workbench, and was pleasantly surprised to find a piece of paper underneath it: Celes's note!

Eagerly, she flipped aside the mitt and examined the messy handwriting. Without lines and an ink pen – Celes _hated_ ink, but with nothing to sharpen a pencil with during travel, it was a given – the thing looked more like a work of abstract art than writing. Did all doctors have messy handwriting?

Still, she'd come to be able to interpret the chicken scratch, and, with a final squint of her eyes, she read:

_You think I'm a chivalrous fool._

She smiled. He knew her well enough.

_Also, you went for the gloves first. I agree, fix them immediately, _then_ keep working on the drop forge._

Also correct.

_More importantly, though, I know you're angry at me for letting you rest._

Not so much angry as irritated. That was one thing Celes still hadn't realized – that she was nicer than he made her out to be. With a sigh, she continued tracing along the page:

_You'll sigh when I say this, but you need it. _She did. _You heal pretty fast, though – by my estimation, you should be using that hand right now. Maybe it doesn't even hurt any more, but don't be surprised if it does. _Smiling to herself, she shook her head. He'd been right. _Regardless, it's still an injury, and I still don't know if the tendons were damaged. Try to be careful, after all, I –_

The statement ended in several scratched out words. If the medium had been pencil instead of ink, maybe she could have read what had been underneath, but the paper soaked through, rendering

The note suddenly cut off, his words running to the edge of the piece of paper. Perturbed, she looked around for the next page, but even after several fruitless minutes, still couldn't find the thing.

"I – what?" she read aloud, thinking. I have plans? I don't want to see you get hurt?

I like you?

With another mind-clearing shake of the head, she went ahead and picked up the mitt, digging into her tool pouch for a needle and thread. She was satisfied that he'd left a note – she was _not_ going to start imagining nonsensical endings to an unfinished sentence.

The needle went into the leather with perhaps a little too much venom.

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Celes wanted to scream at Naru, but this time for an entirely different reason than frustration. This time, it was embarrassment.

"Really, Celestyn," the old medicine woman crooned – at least it sounded like crooning, but her intention was really a scolding – "it's a festival. And you know what all the young boys and girls are going to be doing during the night, after they break open the kegs of wine –"

"I, am, a, doctor," he enunciated through clenched teeth. "I know what happens. And I was in the Imperial army. I know what most of my squadmates did on leave."

Which was go into town and pick up the finest looking piece of man-bait they could find. That, or return to their wives. The end result was the same, however. Celes abstained, not out of any sense of modesty, but that he had no wife to return to – and really, at his age, it would have made little sense – and that, as a medical student, he knew just what grew in half of the bodies of those who used them in such a free way. Nothing he wanted.

He'd treated the results more than once on the front, when the symptoms had begun to show. One person had nearly died of the resulting blood infection, but fortunately they hadn't been so far up the front to not have access to a field hospital.

And that had been in "civilization", which all the amenities that allowed such free contact without the normal biological results of such couplings. Here, they didn't even have those.

At least, that was the problem that Naru had faced him with.

"I want you – " a brown wrinkled finger, permanently curved into a hook, somehow managed to point at him – "to take these herbs and make some pills out of them for me. That should secure you a position once this event is done and over with."

Said herbs were handed to him in a small wooden box that might have once held a dozen bars of soap. The fact that it said "Soap – One Dozen" on the top helped.

Carefully, he took the box and made a show of turning it over. "Just how big is a pill?" he asked.

Her clouded green eyes blinked blankly at him. "Pills," she said blankly.

Celes sighed. "Show me one."

Almost too eagerly, she dug into her belt pouch, and suddenly came out with a green orb. This time, it was Celes who blinked. The "pill" was the size of an egg.

"That's no pill. That's a death sentence."

Naru leered at him. "The herbs are quite weak, and you have to eat them a day in advance."

That's not a pill, then.

"Don't worry, though, we make sure _all_ the girls take them." Isara's face came to his mind, inspired by the way she said "all"; flushing, he wondered just how she would take the news. "We can't have children out of wedlock, can we –"

Celes spluttered. "Those plants can do that?" Such an efficient method of contraception would be –

Wait; she'd said the day before. Knowing how most situations occurred, such a medicine wouldn't find too many customers.

More calmly this time, he asked, "Exactly what do these do?"

Naru let a grin of superiority cross her face – for once, he was asking the questions. "They make it so that seed cannot last in the field, dying before they ever take root."

Celes had been asking for the science behind it; clearly, she couldn't give it him. "And where do these things grow, anyways?" he continued, still trying to figure the herbs out.

"That's a secret," she smirked, "known only to the medicine women of Fhirald."

He narrowed his eyebrows. "How do I know you're not lying about these things?"

She could only maintain her look of superiority. "For the same reason that I haven't been murdered by an angry mother yet."

Throwing up his hands, he ceded the point. "I'll get to work then. Don't want to disappoint the ladies, after all."

As he picked up his crutches to leave, she called at him. "Oh, Celes?"

"Hmm?"

"You haven't been plowing your lover lately, have you?"

He coughed, ears flaming. "Of course not, she's not –"

"You seemed so frustrated; it's obvious you've been abstaining recently," she prattled on, oblivious.

"Excuse me, but –"

"Just because I gave you these," she snapped, suddenly vicious, "doesn't mean you go back to rutting your evenings away." Mouth agape, Celes could only stand in shock as she added, "I don't want you to distract her from that forge of hers, we haven't had a metalworker since –"

The door slammed shut to the accompaniment of her croaking laughter.

The sun was still high in the sky, but for once he could make it back early. He practically flew into his chair and whipped on the protective gloves in seconds, wheels spinning furiously as he pumped himself up the hillside back to his – _their_, he corrected himself – home.

Home. It truly was that now.

He reflected on the note he'd left earlier, although "note" was a misnomer; it was more of a long winded rant attempting to explain how exactly how he felt about her, about how he didn't want her to think that he was taking advantage of their relationship, about how it was mainly business and familiarity, anyways.

Heart racing, he checked himself internally. No matter how much he denied wanting her on the outside, he'd stupidly made sure to leave the possibility of a more intimate relationship open using some _very_ careful language –

Celes shook his head. There were too many obstacles. They were too young, they'd been on enemy sides, and he was an Imperial, a name synonymous with "Darcsen hater".

His gloved hands dug into the rubber with perhaps a little too much venom.

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**Hilarity ensues in the next chapter. That is all I'm going to say about it, although it will not be X-rated hilarity, fortunately.**

**Obviously, I'm touching on those risqué subjects, but now for the second question. What is the going opinion on X-rated things? Do people want them to be written out, or left with a humongous implication? I just don't want to offend anyone's sensibilities. I'm personally leaning towards implication with several details, but that could easily change. :p**


	43. Indiscretion

**Ominae: Err… "the story for VC 2 an internal one?" Sorry, but I don't think I caught the meaning of that…? *sweat drop***

**Cloner4000: I fully expect to use the wrench within a chapter or two. On whose head, though, is beyond me. There's not too much reason to use it on Celes… yet. :3 And when I do my evil deeds a few chapters later, you'll see what I mean by implication and detail. *cough***

**I'm starting to wonder if I should inject a few more viewpoints into the story, to add dramatic irony – or if I should now limit myself to the perspectives of my two characters. I really don't want it to seem like nothing important is going on… but I also don't want to look like I thrust my characters back into action on a whim. Suggestions, folks?**

**For now, though, Celes makes a baaaaaaaad decision, but perhaps some would say the reward was worth it…**

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Shing!

The sound was reminiscent of a sword leaving its scabbard, but the truth was far more mundane. Sighing, Isara absent-mindedly rolled the device against the workbench again, producing that same noise. It looked like a wheel – indeed, it was. The bearings inside of it, though, were far from perfect, producing the grating noise of metal on metal. At the end of the roll, she pulled it back up to eye level, watching the metal disc merrily spin a few times before coming to a screeching sudden halt. She made an unhappy expression. She knew she was overly expectant, but some part of her expected the bearings she'd just cast to be a little more regular.

In reality, the fact that such bearings even fit together and rolled at all was impressive. Oh well.

Impatient with herself, she put the wheel back down next to its three mates, and snapped herself upright out of her chair. For some reason she couldn't explain rationally, she expected Celes to share lunch with her today. It wasn't as if she had any reason to expect such a thing – Celes always worked until the "end" of the day, occupying himself with the small hurts and illnesses of the villagers. Supposedly, he wanted to educate them further about how to treat themselves properly with the most modern methods in his spare time; smiling, she remembered how he'd come back complaining about Naru's unsanitary and painful way to "treat" a burn.

She could do him one favor, though.

As she'd just crafted the four wheels for the forge, the furnace was still stoked and burning hot. It would be a criminal waste of fuel to let all that heat go to waste.

With that in mind, Isara grabbed all the buckets she could and walked outside.

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Rolling to a stop at the crest of the last hill, Celes swallowed.

There it was. Truthfully, the building wasn't nearly as much of a shack as he'd assumed. Smiling, he thought of how Isara would scold him for thinking of a garage as a ramshackle building. "A good garage is better than a house. You live in a house. You have to work in a garage. You can get away with sleeping with a draft, but the drive-belts of your vehicle won't."

He shook his head. Don't think about that right now. Think on how you're going to answer her…

Would she be angry with him for being so brusque in his writing? Angry for being so ambiguous? Or would she just pretend it never happened, and keep the knowledge of it to herself?

Slowly, he felt the thought processes in his mind lock into endless loops, circular logic that had no end. So much for taking things rationally.

And so he let his arms push him down of their own accord.

His crutches were with him today, a small change of procedure that simplified the normal returning ritual. Normally, they were a drag to carry around – but seeing as Isara hadn't been awake when he'd left, he'd taken them with him, more out of arbitrary desire than any need. By sliding them both through the two hooks for his bag and coat on the back of the chair, it wasn't particularly difficult – although the additional width it gave him had caused him to clip passerby more than once, much to their bemusement.

Once again, he rolled to stop, but this time he was in front of the door. Gingerly, he stood, keeping all his weight on his left foot. Retrieving his crutches and bag, he checked himself. Self-consciously, he smoothed his clothing, widened his stance a bit, patted his hair down, played with his eyeband – all nervous motions. He realized he hadn't taken off the thick gloves that protected his hands – those got shaken off and thrown into the seat.

Once again, he checked himself, but this time internally. What was he thinking? Just call out and walk in.

Mind still too busy to call, though, he only accomplished the second goal successfully.

Instantly, he decided that that had been the best and worst action of his life.

Because Isara was bathing right in the center of the room..

For a moment, he stood frozen with one crutch in the air, about to come down. Likewise, she stared at him from her sitting position on the other side of the room, like a deer in headlight, dark hair hanging limply in the steam down either side of her face. Creamy white skin set off by the black furnace behind her, she was submersed in suds to right beneath her bare breasts –

"Valkyrur!" he cursed.

That was all Celes let himself see before instantly attempting to flee the scene. Moving backwards with crutches was a near impossibility, though, and he toppled like a felled tree into the doorway, banging his head on the frame.

His mind spun, both from impact and thought. He should have called. But – was this her reaction to his note? To – offer herself to him?

No, wait, that was stupid. She had no way of knowing he'd be back this early. In fact, she'd probably decided to bathe _now_, while he still gone, because she obviously wouldn't do it while he was there. That's what they had established previously, anyways – when he'd needed to bathe, she'd always gone to finish whatever business in town she might have had.

And now he had most likely offended her beyond all repair.

There was the sound of splashing water, then running foot steps. "Celes!" he heard her cry out.

No, no, no! Don't –

Oh. Well, at least she had a towel.

Not that it did much for the situation.

"I… ow… sorry," he ended lamely, sitting up, although he took great pains to keep his gaze downwards as much as possible. "I thought I might surprise you by actually coming back before dark, for once –"

That sounded extremely lecherous of him. "Not surprise like that!" he swiftly added. Against his will, he let his gaze rise, watching her body gracefully curve into her face, which was twisted in an expression of worry and care.

His head throbbed; his vision blurred. A second involuntary, "Ow…" of pain escaped his lips before he could suppress it.

Immediately, she scurried off. There was the sensuous sound of clothes on bare skin – it was too bad he was too dizzy to care.

"Celes, get up, please," she said gently.

"No," he replied, like an impudent child. "The world is falling out from underneath me."

"You said this how you treat concussion."

"I lied." He was, of course, lying right now.

"No, you weren't," she said impatiently, and before he could argue any further, she grabbed him from underneath his arms and hoisted him up. Automatically, his feet squared themselves, but once again the brace confounded him, sending his foot skittering sideways. But before he could fall completely, she'd braced herself, supporting his weight for him as he scrambled to put himself in a better position.

Still taking his weight for him, she pulled him back a few steps, then slid out from behind him; he threw out his hands, catching himself on the wall and ending his instability for good.

Well, that solved that problem.

Both of them stood there, breathing hard, mere steps away from each other yet refusing to meet each other's gazes. Seconds slipped by; Celes could feel the moisture in the air, acknowledging the presence of the bath.

Eventually, Isara spoke. "Well…" she started awkwardly.

"That was a mistake of mine," he joked, but only half-heartedly.

She shuffled, bringing her chin up to look at him. "Well… there's nothing to worry about."

Ta-thump. "… what do you mean by that?" Just how had she interpreted that note? Was this –

"You appear to be capable of rational thought and speech. Just stay awake for the next hour and I won't have anything to worry about," she ended with a smile.

Oh. Never mind. The Imperial finally brought his own head up, the awkwardness passing. "I suppose." She was dressed in her sleepwear, probably the first thing that had come to hand.

"Oh, and in case you were wondering… yes, I made sure to clean the wound, just as you asked."

Her chest wound, what had driven them together in the first place. "Heh. Sometimes I think…", but then he shut his mouth as he guiltily – and silently – wondered if he should have thanked the sniper who shot her for letting him meet her – and then mentally made sure to never bring that up around her, ever.

"What?"

"Never mind."

He held out a hand – automatically, Isara bent down, picked up his crutches, and handed them over. "I suppose," he started, "I should let you finish your bath."

She flushed at that, he noticed with interest. He decided to also not point out that her wet hair, still dripping, had soaked the top of her nightshirt, which now clung in a rather interesting fashion on her body. "But it's cold outside, and… your head –"

"It won't be cold if I do something useful," he deflected. He wondered if his chivalrous smile was a bit too wide. "And I promise I won't go unconscious on you."

She wrinkled her brow. "… you sure?"

"Positive." He just needed to escape this situation before he did something stupid.

"Well… alright then. See you in a bit." Voice shaking with – something – she turned her back on him and began walking back to the bath in a clear dismissal.

Celes decided that hanging around to watch her continue was no longer an option, and turned to go –

Paper rustled underneath one of his crutches; he snapped his head back to ensure she hadn't heard. Seeing her gather up the towel and clothes again – slowly, to give him time to leave – he quickly reached down with a hand and snatched it – no, _them_ – into his hand.

He recognized his own handwriting, or artwork, as it more closely resembled, immediately._ Four _ pages of confused writing, both trying to be standoffish and yet intimate at the same time.

Frantically, he cast his eyes about the room – noting the first page sitting elegantly on the corner of the workbench, corners aligned with the table's edges in a precise manner. So she hadn't read these pages, then – why else would they be laying haphazardly on the ground?

"Celes? Are you leaving?" Isara called, leaning amusedly against the edge of the tub. Thankfully, she hadn't undressed yet, although why she would was beyond him.

The pages disappeared behind his body as he straightened and turned towards the door. "Just leaving," he called back.

It was better that she didn't read those and get a wrong impression. He'd tell her exactly what he thought face to face…

Later.

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***awkward turtle***

**So yeah. That wasn't strange at all. Don't be afraid of getting bogged down, though, I'm counting the days until the festival as well! That'll be great fun to write.**

**Unfortunately, though, school starts in two days for me. Writing will most definitely slow. I'll work hard, but fully expect updates to take anywhere from four days to a week now… but I will try to make the blurbs more substantial, if not quite enough to make up for time. Sorry… but the alternative is me failing, and then where would this story be? :p**

**Of course, there's this thing called a review button that would really inspire me. Even if you don't really read OC fics… give an opinion on the quality of writing. Every little bit helps!**


	44. Amand

**DC20: Hurray for quality checks! Seeing as the chapters are really starting to stack up, I'm starting to think it's time to "iron" the chapters together, and while I'm at it improve the quality – perhaps even throw in additional guns for Chekov to have fun with. (Hurray for writing references.)**

**Cloner4000: Yeah, I've been busy. In fact, I've only had ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there – and I'm not talking a lot of these per day, I'm talking like this much per day. And I'm riding every minute of it as hard as I can… that didn't sound right.**

**Ominae: Oh, okay. Seeing as I probably won't be done before that comes out… time to start thinking of what my characters are going to be doing during this civil war…**

**And now for someone completely different… okay, not really, but someone who is supposed to be the cause of some drama in the near future…**

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"Hoi, Isara! Three days left, and you're still scrounging for scraps?"

The sound of the Fhiraldian's voice brought a smile to her voice. He was always too enthusiastic.

"Amand!" she greeted, quickly rising off of her knees to face him. "I haven't seen you for a few days." It was true – normally the rebellious son of a farmer was busy, as he put it, "being oppressed" by his family and put to work. Of course, seeing as there was little enough actual work to be done, he ended up running odd jobs for those involved with the festival preparations.

The man – although that was really a misnomer, as he couldn't have been more than a year older than Celes – took a step back, as if accused – awkwardly, he looked to the side and put a hand on the back of his head. "Err, well, it's not like I _didn't_ want to come," he said, almost resolutely.

The scene brought back a not-so-distant memory. The first time they'd met had been when Isara had made her public announcement that she needed any and all metal goods. He'd ignorantly asked, "Just what do you need our stuff for, anyways?"

If it had been any other place, she'd have thought him a Darcsen-hater, but something about his attitude led her to another answer. Thus armed, she'd affixed him with a steely glare, and, cold as ice, answered, "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can produce things out of thin air."

Unable to come up with a rebuttal, he succumbed to flailing his arms around with indignation. There was no shortage of mirth in the crowd after that, and more than one villager had made some cry of being unable to handle a woman, and soon Amand's public humiliation was the talk of the village for days. It was fortunate that there was nothing malicious about the talk, but nevertheless, it seemed that Amand had never quite been so taken off guard by a girl before.

And so he had been a constant visitor to her ever since, appearing at their workshop and home at the most random of times, but always with hands free. Sometimes he'd simply been around to say hello, passing through with some box or barrel in tow to be delivered somewhere else, but more often than not he'd be empty-handed, ready to fill his arms with whatever she could give him.

It was almost pathetic, the way he tried to regain favor from her.

Regardless, it didn't mean she couldn't be kind to him. Giving him a benevolent smile, she wiped her hands on her coverall – guiltily savoring the lack of a bandage, as Celes had declared the burn to be sufficiently healed to benefit from outside air, although she knew most of that was the precious ragnaid he had splurged on her. Carefully taking a cloth and doing the same to her sweat-crusted brow. She'd been attaching yesterday's wheels to a set of earlier fashioned rails – with a slight smile, she remembered Celes's indignant yelp at discovering that hot metal looked the same as cold, and the subsequent complaining. The point had been to see if the crude constructions could still nevertheless cruise along the guides well enough to accomplish the forging. The answer was yes – but it was almost impossible to get them off and on with the deformities inherent with makeshift construction. The rails had simply been hammered out from old metal handles, and she doubted that they would hold any sort of real weight whatsoever.

She'd have to find something considerably more sturdy than what she had used for the mockup if she actually wanted to make the forge. Seeing as she did, she knew exactly what she was going to ask him.

"Actually, Amand, yes," she answered.

He looked taken aback. "Really?"

She gestured towards the arranged metal pieces on the ground. "You see these?"

As he turned his attention toward them, he walked over to beside her, hands behind his back. His focus seemed sincere – until he almost bumped into her.

Silently, she dodged away. Had she been any less attentive, it could have been extremely awkward.

As she hastily disguised the dodge by walking to the building's door, as if to grab a tool, she thought she saw a look of near-disappointment on his face. Absently, she wondered what it was about.

When she came back, the Fhiraldian was squatting beside the mockup, regarding it with a quizzical eye. "What is this," he asked with a tinge of humor in his voice, "some sort of railroad?"

"It's the structure of the drop forge I've been making all this time," she said flatly, unamused by his antics.

"Eh?" Gingerly, he reached out for a wheel – at her nod, he took it into his hand and rolled it up and down the rail. "What does this have to do with that?"

She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. "Did you think that the huge weight would fall unguided and uncontrolled?"

Once again, he appeared taken off-guard. "Well… yes?" he offered sheepishly.

This time, she actually did roll her eyes. "That's called a compactor, not a forge – and besides, even those still have guiderails. You wouldn't want to drop such a heavy weight to bounce away and hurt someone, would you?"

He wrinkled his brow, apparently deep in thought. Slowly, he began, "I suppose not –"

She'd had enough of his incompetency. "Forget it," she sighed. "Just lend me a hand here, will you?"

He jumped up a little too eagerly at that. "Of course!" he piped, almost like an eager schoolboy.

Moving the makeshift rails back in proved to be much easier with two sets of hands, and, unlike in the morning, she hadn't even broken a sweat as the last of the four metal pieces made its way back underneath the roof.

"So, Isara, what are you planning to do during the festival?" he asked.

She leaned against the workbench casually, taking the question seriously. "Tell the truth," she said slowly, "I'm not sure." Embarrassedly, she realized that she really didn't know exactly what was going on. "Err, Amand, could you fill me in? You've lived here longer than I have."

His chest swelled out proudly as he launched into his explanation. "Well, the day always starts with the competitions."

She nodded. "Celes mentioned something about that, when Napa hurt himself –"

"Napa's down?" he interrupted, almost savagely.

She blinked. "Why, yes, he was moving a tree when he dislocated –"

"YES!"

As he pumped his fist and leapt about a meter into the air, Isara once again found it hard to suppress a sigh. "Amand, you know it's not good to celebrate the misfortune of others –"

"I don't care!"

"Amand." The single word dripped with all the disapproval she could load it with. It had its desired effect as the name's bearer immediately settled himself down as much as he could – which was to say he was shaking with glee instead of dancing with it.

"Do you realize what this means?" The statement escaped his lips in a whispered hush, as if letting slip one of the most sacred secrets known to mankind.

Isara, however, was not so impressed, confronting him with arms akimbo. "No, I don't. What?"

He patted his coarse shirt as if to compose himself, clearing his throat as he did so. "Napa's hogged this competition all to himself ever since –" He broke off, once again lost in thought. "Since I've been born, actually. He's always been the best…"

As Amand digressed into excited murmurings once more, Isara decided that it was no longer worth it to argue with him. Throwing up her hands in absolute disgust, she cast her eyes about for something extremely unpleasant to do.

He wouldn't refuse anything she asked of him. That was to be his downfall.

**********************************************************************************

"Thank you, Amand, for being so helpful today!" she chimed as her subject sat – or more accurately, sprawled – himself at the table. The entire place was clean and organized now, no longer looking as if a tornado had come through and redecorated the building.

Isara hadn't been completely idle – she'd quickly fashioned fresh racks and trays out of the spare wood that had been both payment and assignment. Ironically, it had come from Napa about a week ago; she wondered what he would think if he knew that she was using it as a perfectly good excuse to persecute someone on his behalf.

"You… know I'm always willing… to help you," he panted. He raised a hand to wipe his brow – Isara almost let him finish the movement, but checked herself in time to throw a towel at him first. Said hands were smeared black with detritus from the inside of the furnace – she'd made him shovel out the accumulating ash as the last and most unpleasant task of them all.

Amand simply nodded with thanks as he caught the towel, cleaned his hands with it – and then wiped his face, streaking it black anyways. Isara could have wept for his idiocy, but instead pushed a small pitcher of water at him.

Ignoring the cups right beside him, he simply grabbed the large container and drank. Once again, Isara was struck dumb, too shocked to complain – and was even more flabbergasted when the pitcher came back down on the table upside down, completely empty.

All he had to say for himself was, "Would you mind getting me another?"

Two such containers later, he was done, body fully lax against the chair's back, eyes closed in fatigued bliss. The Darcsen only had enough composure to silently think to herself, postulating on how his internal organs hadn't exploded yet.

A minute passed. Squirming awkwardly in her seat, Isara wondered if Amand had fallen asleep. Eventually scrapping all the remaining politeness she had, she rose, taking up the pitcher once more – but this time to be washed, not filled.

As she opened the door to leave, though, the apparently lifeless body spoke.

"You know, I never told you about the rest of the festival," Amand's voice drawled, catching her in mid-step.

"… you're right," she hesitantly answered.

"After the competitions, the day gets progressively less busy. There's the exhibitions, of course –"

Isara nodded. "I knew that was happening, but exactly…" Sighing and turning back towards the still-facedown man, she turned her attention back, and finished her train of thought with a question. "Exactly what am I supposed to do?"

"Demonstrate. Talk. Generally participate is the name of the game, and don't be a naysayer. A lot of people will have some pretty weak attempts – but cheer them on, because that's how you'd want your audience to react."

She frowned. Celes's rant on faith came to mind. "I've… heard… that it is best to be honest even at the cost of happiness."

Amand suddenly sat up, affixing her with a suspicious eye. "Who told you that?"

Abandoning her goal of washing the pitcher, she quickly closed the distance to her chair, sitting back down in her previous seat. "Celes –"

The Fhiraldian's brown face suddenly collapsed into a blank look. Once upon a time, she might not have known how to interpret it – but Celes's discussions of medicine had taught her that such a look was often a reaction to news someone did not want to hear, such as a terminal illness or injury. "… Celes?" he finally said flatly. "Is Naru telling the truth that the two of you –"

"The two of us what, precisely?" She was on her guard – he only scoffed at her defensiveness.

"Do I need to spell it out for you?"

She thought for a while, examining their situation. "I suppose you could say that –"

"What?" he interrupted, almost accusing.

She backed off, eyes wide with surprise. "… let me finish." He complied, although his baleful glare spoke volumes. "… the two of us… have a strange relationship."

"… relationship, eh?" Still the voice was biting, and Isara wondered just what he intended with his line of questioning.

"It's not an intimate one… but I suppose you could call it one borne of familiarity." She coughed, doing her best to dodge his obvious animosity.

"You know that Celes and I arrived together, right?"

"Yes."

"We… have been through a lot together."

"Explain yourself, then."

"… he saved my life."

That got his attention. After taking a deep breath, he asked, "How?"

She decided against flashing the physical evidence – alone with a single male, it would easily be mistaken for something completely different. "I was shot by an Imperial sniper… here," she pointed, touching the wound above her heart, but below her shoulder.

His eyes widened. "There's an Imperial rifle in town in the armory –"

Armory? That was news to her.

"– that we don't use, ever. The wounds it makes are horrific, not meant for hunting… but for killing. It's useless for game – it blows them apart. And you lived?"

She nodded grimly. "It was all of his doing. He saved me, like I said."

The word "Imperial" suddenly manifested in Amand's mind, given the way his entire attitude shifted from amazement to skepticism in the blink of an eye. "But Celes is an Imperial. Why would one of his snipers shoot you, if you were under his care?" His eyes narrowed further. "And you're… Darcsen. I heard that the Imperials persecuted them beyond belief…"

"I am from Gallia."

The statement splashed through the last bits of Amand's calm like a grenade in a puddle.

"Wait, wait, wait, so you – he – war – I don't understand!"

She sighed. "This will be a long story…"

He caught himself before he flailed his arms once more, settling down in his chair again. "I've got time. I'll hear you out."

**********************************************************************************

"And that's why he goes around in that chair and crutches of his," he confirmed.

She nodded, a move full of sad regret. "I… should have expected Celes to fail. Darcsens don't go travelling, after all – especially not singly, accompanied by single soldiers of the Imperial army."

He cocked his head at her. "You know, I always thought Celes looked a bit like a Darcsen himself."

"… really?" She shook her head. "No. I suppose we both have dark colored hair, but his is streaked with silver –"

"What's with that, anyway?"

"I've never asked," she replied, with the air of one cradling a live bombshell.

"… I suppose you've never asked about the lost eye either?"

"Supposedly, it was a grenade."

"What?"

"That was my reaction, but he's maintained the story."

His face arranged itself into an unhappy expression. "We've had gunpowder explosions before. Where are the burns?"

"… don't try asking him. He gets… touchy."

"You found that out about him, I suppose?"

"Yes." It was all the answer she needed to give him.

He sighed. "Are you leaving anything out?"

She thought again, dredging her memory for the events of that month – the pain, the suffering, the fear, everything. "No," she finally declared.

Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair. "And yet…" He gave their sleeping quarters a loaded look, where _two_ separate cots were clearly laid out. Close – but not that close.

All of sudden, every single little prior move of his came down in a cascade of realization, sending blood rushing to her extremities. "N-no. We haven't even, well,"

Amand's expression was one of surprised satisfaction. "Well, then, Isara, I'll let you finish asking me the questions you had in return for those stories."

She blinked. "Oh, I am silly," she admitted with a sheepish smile. "Go on, what happens after the exhibitions?"

"Dancing," he drawled, a glazed look coming into his eyes. "So much dancing. All the girls come out in their finest clothes, and their freest attitudes. It's the best time of the day."

The urge to slap him was barely suppressed. "And then?"

He snapped out of his stupor, embarrassedly glancing over her, as if only just realizing that she was a woman, too, and might not have appreciated the attitude he had had. "Err, then there's a last bonfire. But not everyone attends it – every one with enough energy goes off and –" He swallowed. "– continues dancing somewhere else."

She puffed out her cheeks in irritation. "I… don't have anything to wear for those dances," she admitted.

"Really? You're a –"

"Something fancy is not conducive to an escape through the Empire."

"Well…" Once again, he let his eyes do his talking by looking at the loom in the corner. Her two-thirds completed traditional shawl hung on it, as if begging to be completed.

"I can find someone to finish that for you."

She shook her head. "Thanks, but no thanks. You really don't know much about Darcsens, do you?"

"No…"

"There are only two people allowed to work on the pattern. Myself – and my spouse."

"Oh."

"Seeing as I really am in no position to become married to one of the girls here…"

"Yes, of course," he corrected himself hastily. "Anyways, I really should be going. I still want dinner, you know, and I wouldn't want to impose."

She frowned – had it really become that late? "It's okay, we have more than enough. Your peers are really quite generous –"

He shook his head, mirroring her earlier action. "I wouldn't want to stay here too long."

"Why not?"

"I just don't. Oh, and don't tell Celes I was here, alright?"

What? "Amand, how am I supposed to explain how all of this got done?"

"Has he noticed any of the past times?" he deftly riposted. "We wasted enough of the afternoon talking so that you could have done it yourself. You haven't told him about me, have you?"

She frowned. To tell the truth, she hadn't – not out of any sense of secrecy, but simply that the subject had never come up. "Well… alright," she reluctantly agreed.

"Alright! It's a promise!"

Well, that sealed her fate.

"I'll see you later, Isara!" he called as he exited – hastily, as if trying not to get caught along the way. "Finish that dress!"

She sighed. Yes, he really was too enthusiastic – dress?

Quickly, she walked over to the loom. Yes, if it was a shawl, she'd have to spend hours and hours on the pattern. But if she forewent that, used the cloth like _that_, and transferred the patterned area to there –

She could simply add some long lengths of white cloth, and she'd have a wonderful sleeveless over-dress with her pattern in to boot. And it wasn't as if she needed the shawl immediately, anyways.

Inspired, she sat down to work, mind already twenty steps ahead of her hands.

_That_ was how she got things done.

**********************************************************************************

**I fired off a few of Chekov's guns, but something's occurred to me.**

**I REALLY want to fix some things in this story.**

**Now that I have a lot of "source" material, I'm seeing the full scope of the story as I want it. However, that also means adding a lot of other things before where I am to fill a few holes and strengthen the base.**

**After I finish the festival arc, before I go anywhere else, I want to do a re-write of everything I've done, fixing up places, deepening the Isara/Celes interaction, dropping weighty notes, explaining Celes's background further, etc. What sayeth the readers?!**

**REVIEW NOW.**


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